History of Women in Computing

Many computer scientists know that the first programmer was a woman.  But did you know that most of the pioneering programmers were women and that computing used to be deemed “women’s work?” In this talk, we will look at the history of women in computing, and why the representation of women in tech has risen and fallen over the years. Know your history!

Registration is not required for this event, drop-ins are encouraged!

About the Speaker

Dr. Joanne Atlee (P.Eng) is a Professor at the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, where she is the Director of Women in Computer Science and the founding Director of the Software Engineering program. Her research interests include software requirements, software modelling, automated analysis of software models, modular software development, and the detection and resolution of feature interactions. She was the General Chair for the 41st International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE’19) and served as Program Co-Chair for the 31st International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE’09) and Program Chair for the 13th IEEE Requirements Engineering Conference (RE’05). She served on the ACM SIGSOFT Executive Committee as an at-large member and is a member of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 2.9 on Software Requirements Engineering. She serves on the editorial boards of ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology and of Software and Systems Modelling. She also serves on the Board of Directors of CS-CAN and its Diversity Subcommittee.