By Megan Mansell Williams

During her week at Berkeley, Allen (far left) rubbed shoulders with three other illustrious women in computing (from left, after Allen): Belle Wei (Ph.D.’87 EECS), dean of engineering at San Jose State University; Teresa Meng (M.S.’84, Ph.D.’88 EECS), professor of electrical engineering at Stanford; and Susan Graham, Berkeley professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences.

Photo credit: Peg Skorpinski

Life is a series of firsts. First step, first word, first job. Fran Allen, IBM fellow emerita and a maverick in the field of computer science for nearly half a century, gives this idea new meaning.  

In 1989, Allen became the first female IBM fellow. In 2000, she was the first recipient of the IBM Technology Mentoring Award, established and named in her honor (she’s an avid mentor and advocate for women in computing). She was the first Anita Borg Award winner for Technical Leadership in 2004 and, in February 2007, the first woman ever to receive the A.M. Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery, her field’s version of the Nobel Prize.

“Now I get invitations from around the world to come talk to women computer scientists—and that’s what I’ve been doing,” she says.  

In January, the College’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences hosted Allen for a series of appearances, including delivering a Regents’ Lecture, sipping tea with undergraduates, visiting classrooms and departments and moderating a panel discussion on career advancement for women engineers.

A specialist in high-performance computing, Allen grew up on a farm in upstate New York and taught math at the local high school. While she was working toward her master’s at the University of Michigan, IBM came knocking and hired Allen as a programmer. She figured she’d pay off her debts, then get back to teaching.  

That was 50 years ago, when her first task was to instruct research scientists in IBM’s new computer language, Fortran (IBM Mathematical Formula Translating System).

For more on Allen, go to http://domino.watson.ibm.com/comm/pr.nsf/pages/news.20020806_fran_allen.html