Frances Allen
The Optimising Compiler
Program optimisation, and the first Turing Award to a woman
Rating
93Impact score
Domains
CompilersProgram optimisationParallel computing
Scouting report
Spent a career at IBM building the theory and practice of compiler optimisation: control flow analysis, data flow analysis, the interprocedural work that every modern compiler still does. Her 1966 paper on program optimisation is foundational. In 2006 she became the first woman to receive the Turing Award, thirty-nine years after the award began.
Curator’s note
Every fast binary you have ever run is downstream of her analyses.
Portrait
Painted from a photograph of Frances Allen by Rama, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0 fr.
Sources
- 01Frances Allen en.wikipedia.org
- 02ACM A.M. Turing Award 2006 amturing.acm.org