Kathleen Antonelli
Kathleen " Kay " McNulty Mauchly Antonelli ( born February 12, 1921 in Creeslough, Ireland, † April 20, 2006 in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania) was one of the six original programmers of the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC ), the first general-purpose electronic digital computer.
Early life and education
After visiting the Hallahan Catholic Girls High School in Philadelphia, she graduated in June 1942 at the Chestnut Hill College for Women with a degree in mathematics from. During her third year at college, to Kathleen went looking for work, knowing that she wanted to be active in the field of mathematics, but in no case as a teacher.
She learned that there were opportunities in the insurance industry to hold actuarial positions with a required master's degree. These positions, however, were at that time only rarely awarded to women, which is why she took part as possible in as many business training courses ( accounting, money and banking, law, economics and statistics).
More career
Between 1943 and 1946 the ENIAC for calculations of ballistic trajectories for the United States Army was developed. In June 1945, Kathleen was selected one of the first programmers to be with other women from the computer industry as Betty Snyder, Marlyn Wescoff, and Ruth Lichterman.
Between June and August 1945, she was educated at Aberdeen Proving Grounds for IBM punched card equipment that should be used for the ENIAC. By using this punch card equipment, ENIAC was able to complete the same ballistic calculations in about 10 seconds.
It was the responsibility of women, the sequence of steps to complete the calculations and set up the ENIAC. Soon she began to be interested in the work (programming) of the ENIAC engineers as Arthur Burks.
Late life and death
Her first husband, John Mauchly, one of the developers of ENIAC, died in 1980 after a long illness. After Mauchlys death Kathleen held about ENIAC multiple presentations (often together with her colleague and very good friend Jean Bartik ) and was available for interviews with reporters and researchers.
In 1985 she married the photographer Severo Antonelli, who suffered from Parkinson 's disease and died in 1996. During this time, Kathleen suffered a heart attack, but again what they are fully recovered. In 1997, she was inducted into the Women Technology International Hall of Fame along with the other original ENIAC programmers.
Antonelli was inoperable cancer diagnosed in the spring of 2006. She died in April of the same year at the age of 85 years.