Ada Lovelace Day: Celebrating women in science and technology

Posted: October 7th, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: events | 1 Comment »

Who was Ada Lovelace?  (Bonus points to you if you already know the answer.)

Ada Lovelace was an early pioneer in computing.  She collaborated with Charles Babbage (the mathematician who conceived of programmable computers) and she is reputed to the be world’s first computer programmer. That’s right — the world’s first computer programmer.  Talk about (geek) grrl power.

Today is the third annual Ada Lovelace Day, an occasion for celebrating the work and the achievements of women in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.  In honor of this I’d like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the two women who introduced me to the use of computing in qualitative data collection and analysis:  Dr. Olga Vasquez (UCSD) and Dr. Lynda Stone (CSUS).  Any inclination I had towards embracing computing in communications research can be traced back to the work that I did with them.

Which women in science, technology, engineering and/or mathematics have inspired you?  Share your stories and spread the word.


One Comment on “Ada Lovelace Day: Celebrating women in science and technology”

  1. 1 Olga A. Vasquez said at 10:06 am on October 7th, 2011:

    The honor is mine, mi querida Maga (oops, the word is out). Mil gracias for remembering when we partnered in bringing joy in the virtual. Olga