Frances Allen

American computer scientist (1932-2020) · United States · On the map · Scientists · Died at 88

Frances Elizabeth Allen was an American computer scientist and pioneer in the field of optimizing compilers. Allen was the first woman to become an IBM Fellow, and in 2006 became the first woman to win the Turing Award. Her achievements include seminal work in compilers, program optimization, and parallelization.

Frances Allen is read about 50 times a day, in 45 languages.

A typical day, 30 days to 6 November 2026

The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 104 days, one point a day.

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A life in dates

2020Died4 August 20202008Erna Hamburger PrizeAward2006Turing AwardAward2004Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision AwardsAwardComputer Pioneer AwardAward2002Ada Lovelace AwardAward2000Computer History Museum FellowAward1998Programming Languages Achievement AwardAward1997Charles Babbage AwardAwardWomen in Technology Hall of FameAward1994ACM FellowAward1991Honorary Doctorate from the University of AlbertaAward1989IBM FellowAward1932Born4 August 1932