Frances Allen receives prestigious Turing award

via HPCwire

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, has named Frances E. Allen the recipient of the 2006 A.M. Turing Award for contributions that fundamentally improved the performance of computer programs in solving problems, and accelerated the use of high performance computing. This award marks the first time that a woman has received this honor.

The Turing Award is ACM’s most prestigious technical award. The $100,000 prize is given to those whose lasting contributions have helped shape the foundations of computing.

Previous recipients are a who’s who of computing, including Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, Marvin Minsky, Donald Knuth, Fred Brooks, and a whole bunch of other household names. If your household includes a computer scientist, anyway. Full list of past honorees here.