CS Superheros
Alan Turing
Born: June 23, 1912
Died: June 7, 1954
At thirteen years old, Alan Turing attended Sherborne School then enrolled in King’s College from 1931 to 1934. Later, he studied and earned a Ph.D. in mathematics and cryptology at Princeton. Throughout his short life, Turing made foundational contributions to AI, theoretical biology, and cryptography. He published several papers about his studies and created the Turing Test used to define and determine the “intelligence” of artificial intelligence. However, one of his most prominent accomplishments is the Turing Machine. During World War 2, Germany used the Enigma code to communicate, which was impossible to decrypt manually. Turing’s machine made intercepting German communication possible, which shaved two years off of World War 2 and also became the basic model of a computer.
Info Sources:
Hedy Lamarr
Born: November 9, 1914
Died: January 19, 2000
For her education, Hedy Lamarr was privately tutored. By ten years old, she could speak four languages, play the piano proficiently, and dance. In 2014, Hedy Lamarr developed her frequency hopping technology, leading to the creation of WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, and other wireless communications. Her frequency hopping technology avoided signal jams and spread the signal spectrum over a wide band. This was significant because she was facing a gender barrier. This was especially true in Hopper's chosen professions of early computer sciences as well as service in the United States Navy. Her invention landed her in the National Inventors Hall of Fame because it is vital for communication and now used throughout the world. Even with her computer science contributions, she was an amazing actress, dancer, and producer as she became the inspiration for Snow White and Cat Women and produced several movies of her own.
Info Sources:
PBS: 7 Things You Didn’t Know About Hollywood Star and Inventor Hedy Lamarr
Grace Hopper
Born: December 9, 1906
Died: January 1, 1992
Grace Hopper graduated from Vassar College with a mathematics and physics degree. She received a PhD at Yale and returned to Vassar to teach there. Later, she joined the US Naval Women’s Reserve and joined the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation. Hopper even had a role in the Conference on Data Systems Language. She familiarized the term "debugging" when she found a moth in the computer. Through these events, Hopper participated in designing COBOL in the 70s, which was then known as the “most extensively used computer language” in the world. Additionally, Grace Hopper contributed to the Second World War efforts by providing calculations vital for calibrating minesweepers and making rocket trajectories.
Info Sources:
Yale Biography - Grace Murray Hopper
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