http://www.awc-hq.org/lovelace/1997.htm

   

                 Past Award Recipients 

                 Esther Dyson
                 A powerful thinker in
                 the computing
                 industry!

                 Betty Holberton
                 One of the six
                 original programmers
                 of ENIAC 

                 Dr. Anita Borg
                 Founder of Systers

                 Jean Sammet
                 Expert in programming
                 languages 

                 Margaret H. Hamilton
                 Founder of Higher
                 Order Software

                 Amy D. Wohl
                 President of Wohl
                 Associates 

                 Dr. Ruth M. Davis
                 Distinguished in
                 government service

                 Grace Murray Hopper
                 Known for COBOL 

                 Dr. Thelma Estrin
                 Professor of computer
                 science at UCLA


                                         Frances Elizabeth Snyder Holberton,
                                                known as Betty Holberton
                                                  1997 Lovelace Award Recipient

                                    The 1997 Augusta Ada Lovelace Award
                                    AWC's highest award for excellence,
                                    was presented to Betty Snyder
                                    Holberton at a gala banquet in the
                                    Washington D.C. area on March 15,
                                    1997. Betty Holberton, a computing
                                    pioneer who was one of the six
                                    original programmers of ENIAC 50 years
                                    ago, went on to a long and
                                    distinguished career.

                                    Developed at the Moore School of
                                    Electrical Engineering at the
                                    University of Pennsylvania, the
                                    Electronic Numerical Integrator and
                                    Computer (ENIAC) was completed in the
                                    fall of 1945 and publicly unveiled in
                                    February 1946. It was the first
                                    operational, general-purpose, electronic digital computer.
                                    Pursued by the Army as a means to speed up calculations required
                                    to produce firing tables, ENIAC was first used to solve an
                                    important problem for the Manhattan Project.

                                    Betty Holberton joined the project at the Moore School in 1942
                                    and continued this work at the U.S. Army Ballistics Research
                                    Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground until 1947 when she left to
                                    join the Eckert-Mauchly Electronic Control Company (1947-1950) to
                                    help with the development of the UNIVAC. She later worked for
                                    Remington-Rand (1950-1953), Applied Mathematics Laboratory, David
                                    Taylor Model Basin (1953-1966) and National Bureau of Standards
                                    (1966-1983).

                                    She influenced the design of portions of the hardware for the
                                    UNIVAC and was responsible for much of the software of the first
                                    UNIVAC, which was delivered to the U.S. Census bureau in March,
                                    1951, to be used to process the 1950 census results. She devised
                                    the first sort-merge generator, for UNIVAC I, which pointed the
                                    way for Grace Murray Hopper to develop the earliest compiler. She
                                    played an active and influential role in the design and
                                    standardization of both COBOL and FORTRAN languages. Grace Hopper
                                    later described Betty Holberton as being the best programmer she
                                    had ever known.
                                    One of her early colleagues said, "Betty could do more logical
                                    reasoning while she was asleep than most people can do awake." In
                                    recognition of this innovative and pioneering career, the AWC
                                    national board has voted to honor Betty Holberton with the
                                    Augusta Ada Lovelace Award.

                                    Information for this article is taken from "The Women of ENIAC" by W. Barkley Fritz, IEEE Annals
                                    of the History of Computing, Vol 18, Number 3.

                                                                                 Banquet Photos
                                                                        Photo credits: Maxine Frutkoff

                                    Additional Resources:

                                    Programmed to Succeed: Betty Holberton
                                    An article in the series Live Wire: Computer Confidence for Women
                                    by Rachel K. Adelson

                                    ENIAC programmers inducted into the Women in Technology
                                    International (WITI) Hall of Fame