Beatrice Worsley
Beatrice Worsley | |
|---|---|
| Born | Beatrice Helen Worsley 18 October 1921 |
| Died | 8 May 1972 (aged 50) |
| Resting place | Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto, Canada |
| Other names | Trixie |
| Alma mater | |
| Known for | Early PhD in computing, first program run on EDSAC |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Computer science |
| Thesis | Serial Programming for Real and Idealised Digital Calculating Machines (submitted 1952; awarded 1954) |
| Doctoral advisor | |
Beatrice Helen Worsley (18 October 1921 – 8 May 1972), better known as "Trixie" Worsely, was a Canadian computer scientist, the first woman in the country to work in that profession. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge with Douglas Hartree as adviser, also with advice from Alan Turing, one of the earliest Ph.D.s to be granted in what would today be known as computer science, in parallel with David Wheeler's Ph.D. studies at Cambridge under Maurice Wilkes. She wrote the first program to run on EDSAC, co-wrote the first compiler for Toronto's Ferranti Mark 1, wrote numerous papers in computer science, and taught computers and engineering at Queen's University and the University of Toronto for over 20 years before her death at the early age of 50.