Mary Kenneth Keller

Mary Kenneth Keller , also Sister Mary K. Keller (born December 17, 1913 in Cleveland , Ohio , † January 10, 1985 in Dubuque , Iowa ), was an American Catholic nun who worked on the development of the programming language in the 1960s BASIC participated and most likely became the first woman in the US to earn a doctorate in computer science .

Live and act

Mary, the daughter of John Adam Keller and Catherine Josephine Keller, born Sullivan, came in 1932 in the Order of Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (in short, Sisters of Charity ') and laid in 1940 the vows from. At DePaul University in Chicago , she did a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and then a Master of Science in Mathematics / Physics . As a doctoral student, she then worked at the Universities of Dartmouth , Purdue and Michigan . At Dartmouth College, Mary Keller was the first woman to work in the computer science center. There she was involved in the development of the BASIC programming language. In 1965 she received his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to Dr. phil. (see below). After graduating , Mary Keller went to Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa. There she founded the chair for computer science and headed it for 20 years. In her office she especially encouraged female students to use the computer.

dissertation

"For the first time we can simulate cognition by machine, " said Mary Keller and gave an example of this with her dissertation entitled Inductive inference on computer generated patterns in 1965. With a computer program, they generated patterns ( patterns ) - thus artificially produced empirical material. With the help of induction ( inductive inference ), her Fortran program then attempted to recognize the pattern in a further step.

literature

Denise Gurer: Pioneering Women in Computer Science . In: ACM SIGCSE Bulletin . tape 34 , no. 2 . ACM Press, June 2002, ISSN 0097-8418 , p. 175–180 , doi : 10.1145 / 543812.543853 (English).

Web links

with photos:

2015, Mihai Andrei: Entry at zmescience.com (English)
2015, Gabriela Tabacaru: Entry at edusoft.ro (English)
2016, Angela Goad: Entry at introductionsnecessary.com (English)

Individual evidence

^ " For the first time, we can now mechanically simulate the cognitive process " quoted in Sister Mary: EdTech Pioneer . at medium.com (English)
↑ Diss. 1965 in WorldCat
↑ “ Her dissertation work involved constructing algorithms that performed analytic differentiation on algebraic expression, written in CDC FORTRAN 63 ” Quotation from the section Mary Kenneth Keller in the article Pioneering Women in Computing Technology . at women.cs.cmu.edu/ada (English)
↑ Denise Gurer

personal data
SURNAME	Keller, Mary Kenneth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Keller, Sister Mary K.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American computer scientist
DATE OF BIRTH	December 17, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH	Cleveland
DATE OF DEATH	January 10, 1985
Place of death	Dubuque, Iowa

[1] " For the first time, we can now mechanically simulate the cognitive process " quoted in Sister Mary: EdTech Pioneer . at medium.com (English)

[2] Diss. 1965 in WorldCat

[3] “ Her dissertation work involved constructing algorithms that performed analytic differentiation on algebraic expression, written in CDC FORTRAN 63 ” Quotation from the section Mary Kenneth Keller in the article Pioneering Women in Computing Technology . at women.cs.cmu.edu/ada (English)

[4] Denise Gurer