Lynn Conway – Computer Scientist – United States
( Photo: Wikipedia
Text: Sean Dunnington, "LGBTQ History of Geography & Computers” Project)
Lynn Conway is a pioneer of microelectronics chip design with an extraordinary life story. She attended both MIT and Columbia University, and in 1964 was recruited by IBM to work on a team building an advanced supercomputer. While at IBM she transitioned from male to female, and was subsequently fired by the company in 1968 after revealing her intention to live as a woman. Conway then began living with a new name and a new identity, and was forced to rebuild her career from scratch, going on to do important work at organizations including Memorex, Xerox PARC, and DARPA. In
