Abstract
Women have contributed to telecommunications and its underlying technology in many ways. Ada Byron Lovelace, Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, and Anita Borg made significant contributions to the computer technology that underlies telecommunications. Mattie “Ma” Kiley, Helen Campbell, , and Gladys Kathleen Parkin were early radio and telegraph operators, and Loomis ran a school to train radio operators. The Longley-Rice model co-developed by Anita Longley is the basis for many radio and television transmission algorithms today. Women with patents who contributed to telecommunications include Hedy Lamarr, Yvonne Brill, Erna Schneider Hoover, Arlene Joy Harris, and Martine Rothblatt. Engineers, physicists, mathematicians, and others with accomplishments in telecommunications include Catherine Eiden, Joan Curran, Betty Shannon, Isabelle French, Vivian Carr, Alice Morgan Martin, Gladys West, Evelyn Murray, Polly Rash Hollis, Leah Jamieson, Judith Estrin, Mary Ann Weitnauer, Andrea Goldsmith, Macha Achour, Anne Chow, and Maryam Rofougaran. We celebrate and honor their contributions.
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Notes
- 1.
Zuckerman reports that Thomas Edison referred to a “bug” in his phonograph as early as 1889. Edison is reported to have defined a bug as “an expression for solving a difficulty, and implying that some imaginary insect has secreted itself inside and is causing all the trouble.”
- 2.
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Tietjen, J.S. (2023). Women Pioneers in Telecommunications. In: Greco, M.S., Cassioli, D., Ullo, S.L., Lyons, M.J. (eds) Women in Telecommunications. Women in Engineering and Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21975-7_1
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