Frances E. Allen, the First Woman To Win the Turing Award, Dies At 88

Frances "Fran" Allen, a pioneer in the world of computing, the first female IBM Fellow and the first woman to win the Turing Award, died on August 4, 2020, the day of her 88th birthday. IBM writes in a blog post remembering Allen: As a pioneer in compiler organization and optimization algorithms, Fran made seminal contributions to the world of computing. Her work on inter-procedural analysis and automatic parallelization continues to be on the leading edge of compiler research. She successfully reduced this science to practice through the transfer of this technology to products such as the STRETCH HARVEST Compiler, the COBOL Compiler, and the Parallel FORTRAN Product. As much as Fran will be remembered for her technical vision and her foundational work in computing, she will equally be remembered for her passion to inspire and mentor others, fostering an environment of perseverance and hard work throughout the IBM community.

Starting as a programmer, Fran's first assignment at IBM was to teach the research community FORTRAN, a new complex language IBM had announced just three months before. This was the start of Fran's career-long focus on compilers for high-performance computing. Following FORTRAN, Fran became one of three designers for IBM's Stretch-Harvest project in the late 1950's and early 1960's. As the language liaison with IBM's client, the National Security Agency (NSA), Fran helped design and build Alpha, a very high-level code breaking language which featured the ability to create new alphabets beyond the system defined alphabets.

An Experimental Compiler for IBM's Advanced Computing System (ACS) became her next project. Fran designed and built the machine-independent, language-independent optimizing component of the compiler. The result was a tool to help drive the hardware design and a new way to analyze and transform programs. This work led to Fran's seminal paper on Program Optimization, first published in 1966, describing a robust new framework for implementing program analysis and optimization as well as a powerful set of new algorithms. Fran's 1970 paper on Control Flow analysis introduced the notion of "intervals" and node dominance relations, important improvements over the control flow abstractions given in her earlier paper. Her 1972 paper, "A Catalog of Optimizing Transformations," identified and discussed many of the transformations commonly used today.

RiP, Fran

[Methuselah2]

Fran was not only brilliant, she was admired/appreciated by many whose paths she crossed. We are all in debt to Fran. RiP, Fran!

Re:

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Out of curiosity, did you know her personally or are you just fishing for mod points?

Re:RiP, Fran

[Methuselah2]

She was the nice lady across the street who worked for IBM. We didn't talk in detail about her work for many years, but when we did, I was astounded. A mutual friend was the one who nominated her for the Turing award. She had lots of friends and mentored many women in the field. I'm sure many people will be sad to learn of her passing...but many people will continue to advance the field, thanks to her help.

Why is she called Fran throughout

[rpresser]

instead of Allen? From what I recall, most biographical summaries use last names.

Re: Why is she called Fran throughout

[ToasterMonkey]

Frances "Fran" Allen

It's given as a nickname right there in the summary. What are you getting at?

Re:

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Traditionally people refer to men by their last name and women, their first. With the coming of genderblind-phrasing, people are expected to refer to women by last name, you sexist!

If you ask me, society went the wrong way and should have done the reverse.

Re:

[MarkWegman]

Inside IBM people, men and women are traditionally referred to by their first name. Fran was my first manager, and it would have felt very very weird to refer to her as Dr. Allen

Re:

[rpresser]

Thank you, learning this really eased my mind.

Re:

[ClickOnThis]

instead of Allen? From what I recall, most biographical summaries use last names.

Fair point. Gender bias (unconscious or otherwise) does exist in STAM fields, although I'm not aware of its use with first and last names. If anyone knows otherwise, please enlighten us.

That said, I have noticed that people in STEM fields do often switch to first names, regardless of gender, in situations where there is a personal or professional connection, and they wish to add some warmth to the communication. An IBM blog about her passing would appear to qualify.

Re:

[biofunnel]

I empathize with your point, but Not The First Man sounds equally celebratory.

Sad news..

[malkavian]

I'd never previously known of her, or her work, but it's always sad when a great mind leaves the stage.

It's often said that the best anyone can hope for is to be remembered well, but being remembered well (as she seems to be) and still be able to give people those moments of enlightenment long after you're gone, that's quite the cherry on top.

I'll raise a glass (and one of her papers) in celebration of her time amongst us.

That would never happen these days

[Bloke down the pub]

Fran's first assignment at IBM was to teach the research community FORTRAN, a new complex language IBM had announced just three months before.

Would never happen now. Some headhunter would filter her out for not having two years experience in it.

Bad choice of words?

[blastard]

Perhaps an indication of gendered terminology that needs to change.
"Fran made seminal contributions"

Re:

[ClickOnThis]

Perhaps an indication of gendered terminology that needs to change.
"Fran made seminal contributions"

Meh. I don't double-take when someone says some guy "gave birth" to a new field or whatever.