Turing Award for a great woman explorer and

a champion of women in science

BusinessWeek, 23 February 2007

 

The Turing Award Honors Frances Allen The first woman to receive the
nation's top science prize pioneered program optimization—and IBM's product
development process by Steve Hamm <http://www.businessweek.com/bios/Steve_Hamm.htm>

How does it feel to be the first woman to receive the nation's top computer
science award? Sweet, indeed, says Frances Allen, the IBM Fellow Emerita who
this week received the prestigious A.M. Turing Award. "I have worked hard
for women to be recognized, and I'll use this as a platform to get more
attention to the role of woman in computing," she says.

The Association for Computing Machinery cited Allen, 74, for her pioneering
contributions to the "theory and practice of optimizing compiler
techniques." For the layperson, that means she came up with techniques for
writing software programs for supercomputers that saved programming time and
made it easier to take on complex problems in drug discovery, genomic
research, and climate mapping. "The Turing Award recognizes deep technical
contributions that have a lasting impact. That's certainly the case in the
work that Fran did," says John White, the chief executive of ACM. He says a
woman getting the award is "long overdue."

Championing Women in Science

One of the ACM's goals is to encourage more women to get into the computer
science field. Right now, only 26% of the workers in America's information
technology industry are women, and that's down from 33% in 1990. The ratio
seems likely to decline even further in future years. These days, only about
15% of undergraduate computer science degrees at major universities go to
women.

Allen is working hard to reverse the trend. Since she retired from IBM
Research in 2002 after a 45-year career, she has spent much of her time
working within professional organizations to increase the role of women in
computing. "It's essential for women to participate," she says. "A diversity
of people can bring a much more creative environment and better results."

The Turing Award is named for Alan Mathison Turing, a 20th century English
mathematician and cryptographer who is considered by many to be the father
of modern computer science. Notable previous award winners include Internet
pioneer Vinton G. Cerf, computer mouse inventor Douglas Engelbart, and
artificial intelligence innovator Marvin Minsky. Microsoft researcher Jim
Gray, another Turing Award winner (who was lost at sea while sailing alone
off the California coast in January) was on the committee that selected
Allen. The award program, which was started in 1966, includes a $100,000
prize.

Leaders in the computer science field reacted positively to Allen's award.
"This is really the Nobel prize of computing," says William Wulf, president
of the National Academy of Engineering in Washington, D.C., who has known
Allen since the early 1970s. Back in those days, a debate raged in the
computer science community over whether it was better to write programs for
each type of mainframe or minicomputer using so-called machine languages, or
whether higher-level languages such as Fortran would be more effective. With
the higher-level languages, much less programming would be required. Allen
argued for using those languages and translating them into machine languages
using compiler programs. She came up with techniques for optimizing
compilers so they would operate quickly and with relatively few bugs.
Ultimately, her side won the debate. Now, most computer programs are written
in languages such as C and Java, and programs can easily be adapted to run
on different kinds of computers. 

Innovating Science and an IBM Process

It's a very different path than Allen started off on 50 years ago. Intending
to teach school, she got a degree in education from Albany State Teacher's
College and an MA in math from the University of Michigan. But then she
joined IBM in 1957 to pay off her student loans and began her decades-long
association with a research organization that routinely gets more U.S.
patents than any other research organization. Even in those early days,
Allen would invent new science in the labs, participate in developing new
products based on it, and work with customers to make sure they were able to
get full value from the products. In one case, she spent a year with a
customer while new computers based on her ideas were deployed there.

In recent years, the practice of exposing researchers to customers has
become a full-blown strategy at IBM. Researchers are expected to get
involved in product development and also, with increasing frequency, to work
directly with customers on some of their most difficult problems. The
company credits Allen with helping to get that started. "She's really the
mother of customer-oriented computing," says Robert Morris, IBM's
vice-president for services research. "She was an early proponent and
practitioner of what has become our innovation model. There was a time when
we thought of innovation as being just associated with invention. Now we see
it as a path from the invention through to where it has an impact on how
people live their lives."

Allen retired from IBM four years ago so "I could do whatever I wanted,
whenever I wanted." That includes climbing mountains, a passion since the
1970s. Back then, she participated in six first-ascents of mountains in the
arctic—trips with no maps and no radio contact. Her interest in climbing
continues. Last April, she and three companions climbed a 14,000-foot peak
in the Himalayas. There's a strong parallel between research and climbing:
"I love working on new ideas and new possibilities," she says. " I'm an
explorer in just about every sense."

Hamm <steve_hamm@businessweek.com> is a senior writer for *BusinessWeek* in
New York.