| Intro | First American woman to receive a PhD in computer science |
| Is | Computer scientist |
| From | United States of America |
| Type |
Technology Science |
| Gender | female |
| Birth | Ohio |
Mary Kenneth Keller, B.V.M. (c. 1913 – January 10, 1985) was an American religious sister, educator and pioneer in computer science. On June 7, 1965 she, along with Irving Tang at Washington University, became the first people in the United States to earn a doctorate in that field.
Keller earned her degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her thesis was titled Inductive Inference on Computer Generated Patterns.
Life
Born in Ohio about 1913, Keller entered the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1932 and took her vows with that religious congregation in 1940. Later she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics (1943) and a masters degree in mathematics and physics (1953) from DePaul University.
In 1958, Keller began working at the National Science Foundation workshop in the computer science center at Dartmouth College, a male-only institution at the time, where she participated in the development of the BASIC programming language.
Keller believed in the potential for computers to increase access to information and promote education. In 1965, after earning her doctorate, Keller founded the computer science department at Clarke College in Iowa, which she directed for twenty years. Clarke College now has the Keller Computer Center and Information Services, which is named after her and which provides computing and telecommunication support to Clarke College students, faculty members, and staff. The college has also established the Mary Kenneth Keller Computer Science Scholarship in her honor.
Keller was an advocate for the involvement of women in computing, and helped to establish the Association of Small Computer Users in Education (ASCUE). She went on to write four books in the field.
Keller died on January 10, 1985, at the age of 71.