
The first woman PhD in computer science was a nun (2013) - jaoued
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/53178/first-woman-earn-phd-computer-science-was-nun
======
jkingsbery
According to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Kenneth_Keller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Kenneth_Keller)
and
[https://www.cs.wisc.edu/2019/03/18/2759/](https://www.cs.wisc.edu/2019/03/18/2759/),
she is also tied for being the first American to receive a PhD in computer
science (one other person received his PhD on the same exact day). They are
also potentially (it seems there's some debate) the first CS PhDs
([https://studylib.net/doc/8193211/who-earned-first-
computer-s...](https://studylib.net/doc/8193211/who-earned-first-computer-
science-phd%3F)).

Great line from that last link: "Prior to 1965 ... there were none, and after
1965 there was a nun."

~~~
fanf2
The first PhD in computing was David Wheeler in 1951
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wheeler_(computer_scient...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wheeler_\(computer_scientist\))

~~~
hashhar
His PhD was in Mathematics AFAIR. Also note that the Wikipedia article is
missing a citation on that point and further discussion on the talk page.

~~~
fanf2
The title of his PhD dissertation was "Automatic computing with the EDSAC"

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fanf2
Women got PhDs in computing earlier outside the USA, for instance Beatrice
Worsley
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Worsley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Worsley)

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chx
Erm, no.

The first woman to get a PhD in computer science was a Wren, not a nun:
Beatrice Worsley.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Worsley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Worsley)
of note

> When World War II ended, Worsley was the only Wren at the NRE to choose to
> remain in service.

She is tragically forgotten despite she wrote the first program to run on a
Von Neumann architecture computer (that being the EDSAC) which you could
simplify to say she wrote the first computer program as we today understand
such.

Also, she got the first PhD in CS when CS wasn't even a thing yet.

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dhosek
To be more precise, she was a sister. A nun would be a woman consecrated to
religious life who lives cloistered. While "nun" is used colloquially to refer
to all women religious, the technical meaning is narrower.

As many other commenters have noted, there is a culture of many women
religious receiving advanced degrees. One of my college friends who got his
PhD in political science at MIT was surprised to discover that there were two
women religious in his grad school cohort.

In parallel terms, "monk" and "brother" are often used interchangeably, but
like with nun, a monk lives cloistered. A brother is a non-ordained man
consecrated to religious life. While many brothers are monks, many monks are
priests, and some brothers live non-cloistered lives, in the sciences, perhaps
the best known would be Brother Guy Consolmagno who is a Jesuit brother and
the Vatican astronomer.

~~~
sangnoir
I'd argue the best known monk in the sciences is Gregor Mendel , who was an
Augustinian friar and genetics research pioneer.

As an aside, it always rubs me the wrong way when people insinuate the
(Catholic) church is anti-science when the long list of contributions to
science says otherwise.

~~~
dhosek
True that. I was thinking the best-known _living_ brother in the sciences.

Plus, I've met Brother Guy. He's really cool.

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wefarrell
My great aunt who is a nun got a masters in Chemistry in the 1950s. She said
that the only other women in her program were nuns.

~~~
vanderZwan
It's not really surprising, is it? In a society that demands of women to get
married and raise kids instead of work, it's mostly women who aren't allowed
to marry and have kids who get to do things like follow a higher education.

~~~
befeltingu
Nobody is demanding that. It could just be that they want to.

~~~
fanf2
Steve Shirley
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Shirley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Shirley)
was able to found a computing consultancy business in the 1960s staffed
entirely by women that had been fired when they got married, as was the usual
practise at the time.

~~~
befeltingu
Ok, fair enough I never knew this was a common practice. I was thinking more
about today when I made my comment

~~~
erichocean
> _Ok, fair enough I never knew this was a common practice._

What makes you think it was common practice? Exceptions are a thing…

~~~
fanf2
For an example of it being not just common but in some cases required to
dismiss women when they married, see "The Marriage Bar" at
[https://civilservant.org.uk/women-
history.html](https://civilservant.org.uk/women-history.html)

~~~
erichocean
I'm talking about forming all-married women businesses. I'd be shocked if that
was common, but if you have data showing otherwise, I'm happy to be
corrected...

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jdtang13
Okay. Now, where are the details about her religious life? What did she
believe in and care about? It was obviously very important to her, to the
extent that she made serious monastic vows. When a movie actor is a life-long
alcoholic, we happily include that in the biography; but when we are speaking
about Catholic sisters, we whitewash it away from their lives? Pretty
disappointing considering that the headline is "[she] was a nun".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisters_of_Charity_of_the_Bles...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisters_of_Charity_of_the_Blessed_Virgin_Mary)

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jvandonsel
"Dartmouth relaxed the rule barring women from its computer center..."

Just wow.

~~~
PeterStuer
According to Wikipedia Dartmouth College was a male only college until 1972.

Woman did work as employees at the computer center, and bringing dates from
nearby schools and colleges to the computing center was apparently a thing as
students liked to show off their computer skills.

Also of note: unlike other colleges, students at Dartmouth didn't need to pay
for computer time, creating both opportunity but potentially also the need to
'guard' against outsiders.

~~~
ponker
Haha, I love the idea of impressing women by showing them your computer
skills.

~~~
notRobot
Dunno what to say, green-on-black terminals, clean code and fast typing do
always manage to turn me on ;)

~~~
PeterStuer
Given the era I think we are talking key punches, card readers and line
printers here.

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mattkevan
There’s also Sister Catherine Wybourne, AKA The Digital Nun.

She’s a web and app developer and new media pioneer - and her monastery’s
primary income comes through development and consulting services.

I went to a talk of hers on social media years ago and it was excellent.

“Being cloistered doesn't mean that you have to have an enclosed mind, or an
enclosed approach to things.”

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-
life/11511596/Meet-...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-
life/11511596/Meet-digital-nun-the-Sister-funding-her-monastery-through-her-
apps.html)

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ppg677
Not just first "woman" PhD, but tied for first Computer Science PhD (in the
U.S.).

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ppg677
Better article explaining she is actually first PhD in the U.S. for Computer
Science. Not just first woman.
[https://www.cs.wisc.edu/2019/03/18/2759/](https://www.cs.wisc.edu/2019/03/18/2759/)

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jarmitage
I hereby rename NaN to Nun in her honour

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6510
The first woman PhD in Computer Science was Sister Mary Kenneth Keller

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racecondition
Just going to leave this here:
[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-
women-stopped-coding)

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coldcode
Making a lifetime vow does not mean you turn your brain off. The Belgian
priest, Georges Lemaître, first proposed the theory that is now known as the
Big Bang and made other discoveries in astronomy and physics, and still served
as a priest as well.

~~~
raxxorrax
Blaise Pascal is another example. Heard he did something with all kinds of
triangles.

He was quite invasive with his faith though.

~~~
sdiq
And Reverend Bayes, too.

~~~
jll29
Yes, REVEREND Bayes was clergy, too, and what would we do in machine learning
without Bayes' theorem? (His grave is in London.)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem)

~~~
joycian
It seems Bayes never actually wrote down what is now called Bayes Theorem.
(Perhaps he knew of it). I think it was Laplace that recognized the full
generality of the relationship.

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mister_hn
I've reading this news at least for the third time here on HW in this week.

Nice achievement but keep it DRY

~~~
dang
What were those other posts? I only found one from 7 years ago:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=nun%20phd&sort=byDate&type=story)

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azmarks
No wonder we start counting at zero, it all started with a nun.

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skohan
Nikola Tesla and Isaac Newton were virgins as well. It might be argued that a
certain level of unresolved frustration can be a driving force in technical
pursuits...

~~~
francisofascii
I would argue that if you are not hampered by sexual pursuits, it frees your
brain up for technical ones.
[https://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheAbstinence.htm](https://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheAbstinence.htm)

~~~
skohan
I would argue it's probably a bit of both. Fulfilling sexual relationships are
one way to feel a sense of satisfaction in life, and having kids is one way to
achieve a kind of legacy. Solving hard technical problems and moving science
forward is another way to achieve the same goals. One _could_ pursue both, but
if you already have one you might be less likely to feel a strong visceral
need for the other.

