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Pioneering work in microchip design, particularly the Mead-Conway VLSI chip design revolution, and for her advocacy for transgender rights and visibility.
Key Dates and Places
Born Date: January 2, 1938.
Born Place: Mount Vernon, New York, USA.
Death Date: June 9, 2024.
Death Place: Michigan, USA.
Career
Past occupations: Computer Scientist, Electrical Engineer, Transgender Activist, Professor.
Previous Place of Work: IBM (1964-1968), Xerox PARC, University of Michigan (Professor Emerita of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science).
Achievements and Recognition
Awards: W. Wallace McDowell Award (1999), Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) (1994), Computer History Museum Fellow (2009), IEEE James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal (2020), Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering (2021), National Inventors Hall of Fame (2023) . Recognized as a trailblazer in both computer science and transgender advocacy.
Education
Bachelor of Science in Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Master of Science in Electrical Engineering, Columbia University.
Life Philosophy: Advocacy for transgender rights and visibility, believing in the importance of personal freedom and self-expression. Strong belief in the transformative power of technology.
Residence and Financial Status
Residence: Michigan, USA.
Relationships
Past Marriages: First marriage ended due to her gender identity; ex-wife's name is unknown.
Current Marriage: Married to Charles (Charlie) Rogers. They were married for over 50 years at the time of her death.
Main Milestones
Birth in Mount Vernon, New York
January 2, 1938
Lynn Conway was born as a biological male in Mount Vernon, New York. Early in life, she experienced a strong sense of gender incongruence, a feeling that significantly shaped her personal experiences and later fueled her advocacy work. These feelings were kept secret and suppressed due to the societal norms of the time.
Education and Early Career at IBM
1950s - 1960s
Conway earned a Bachelor of Science in Physics and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University. She began her career at IBM in the 1960s, where she made significant contributions to computer architecture. Most notably, she is credited with crucial innovations in dynamic instruction scheduling, a core component of modern computer processors.
Forced to Leave IBM
1968
Conway began transitioning genders in 1968. Due to the prevailing social stigma and IBM's policies at the time, she was terminated from her position after informing the company of her intention to undergo gender affirmation surgery. This event marked a turning point in her life and a deep personal loss.
Gender Affirmation Surgery and Rebuilding Her Career
1969
Lynn underwent gender affirmation surgery and began living as a woman. Following her transition, she faced significant challenges re-entering the technology industry due to the pervasive prejudice against transgender individuals. She worked tirelessly to rebuild her career under her new identity.
Joining Xerox PARC
1973
Conway joined Xerox PARC, a renowned research and development center. There, she collaborated with Carver Mead to develop a simplified, scalable approach to VLSI (Very-Large-Scale Integration) chip design. This approach, known as the "Mead & Conway revolution," democratized chip design, making it accessible to a wider range of engineers and researchers.
Pioneering VLSI Design Methodology
1970s
At Xerox PARC, Lynn Conway revolutionized the field of microchip design by developing simplified design rules and a structured methodology. This approach drastically lowered the barrier to entry, enabling more individuals and institutions to participate in the design and fabrication of integrated circuits. The "Mead & Conway" approach, documented in their seminal textbook, became a standard for modern chip design.
Professor at the University of Michigan
1980s
Lynn Conway joined the faculty of the University of Michigan as a professor of electrical engineering and computer science. She continued to teach and conduct research, influencing a new generation of engineers and computer scientists. Her work at Michigan further cemented her legacy as a leading figure in the field.
Emergence as a Transgender Advocate
Late 1990s
In the late 1990s, Conway began to publicly share her experiences as a transgender woman and her forced departure from IBM. She became a vocal advocate for transgender rights, particularly within the scientific and technical communities. Her website became a valuable resource for transgender individuals seeking support and information.
Activism and Recognition
2000s-2024
Lynn Conway dedicated much of her later life to activism and advocacy for transgender rights. She received numerous awards and accolades for her contributions to computer science and her advocacy work, including the IEEE Computer Society Computer Pioneer Award and the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award. Her story inspired many and helped pave the way for greater acceptance and inclusion of transgender individuals in STEM fields and beyond.
Death
June 9, 2024
Lynn Conway died on June 9, 2024, at the age of 86. Her passing marked the loss of a true pioneer in computer science and a dedicated advocate for transgender rights. Her legacy continues to inspire and empower individuals to pursue their passions and fight for a more inclusive and equitable world.
In the 1960s, while working at IBM, Conway invented generalized dynamic instruction handling, a key advancement used in out-of-order execution, used by most modern computer processors to improve performance. IBM fired Conway in 1968 after she revealed her intention to undergo a gender transition, which the company apologized for in 2020.
Following her transition, Conway adopted a new name and identity and restarted her career. She worked at Xerox PARC from 1973 to 1983, where she led the "LSI Systems" group. She initiated the Mead–Conway VLSI chip design revolution in very large-scale integrated (VLSI) microchip design, which reshaped the field of microchip design during the 1980s.
Conway was born in Mount Vernon, New York, on January 2, 1938 to Christine Alice (née Burney) Savage (1904–1977) and Rufus Savage (1904–1966).[2][3][4][5] Raised as a boy, Conway was brought up in Hartsdale and White Plains, New York, as a shy child who experienced gender dysphoria. After her parents divorced in 1945, Conway and her younger brother, Blair Savage (1941–2022), were raised by their mother. Conway became fascinated by astronomy (building a 6-inch (150 mm) reflector telescope one summer) and did well in math and science in school.[6]
While struggling with life in a male role, Conway had married a woman in 1963 and had two children. Under the legal constraints then in place, she was denied access to their children after transitioning.[14]
Although she had hoped to be allowed to transition on the job, IBM fired Conway in 1968 after she revealed her intention to transition.[15] In 2020, IBM publicly apologized to Conway for firing her at a public event with Diane Gherson, then IBM's senior vice president of human relations. At the event, Conway was awarded the IBM Lifetime Achievement Award for her work at IBM and later work.[16][17]
Upon completing her gender transition in 1968, Conway took a new name and identity and restarted her career in stealth-mode as a contract programmer at Computer Applications, Inc. She then worked as a digital system designer and computer architect at Memorex from 1969 to 1972.[14][19]
Conway joined Xerox PARC in 1973, where she led the "LSI Systems" group under Bert Sutherland.[20][21] When in PARC, Conway founded the multiproject wafers (MPW) technology.[22] Collaborating with Ivan Sutherland and Carver Mead on very-large-scale integration (VLSI) design methodology, she co-authored Introduction to VLSI Systems, a groundbreaking work that would soon become a standard textbook in chip design, used in nearly 120 universities by 1983.[23][24][25][26] With over 70,000 copies sold, and the new integration of her MPC79/MOSIS innovations, the Mead and Conway revolution became part of VLSI design.[24][27]
In 1978, Conway served as a visiting associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, teaching a now-famous VLSI design course based on a Mead–Conway text draft.[14] The course validated the new design methods and textbook and established the syllabus and instructor's guidebook used in later courses worldwide.[28][29]
Among Conway's contributions was the invention of dimensionless, scalable design rules that greatly simplified chip design and design tools,[9][7][30] and invention of a new form of internet-based infrastructure for rapid prototyping and short-run fabrication of large numbers of chip designs.[9][31] They aimed to address the escalating complexity of chip design, as traditional methods struggled to keep pace with Moore's law.[32] The new infrastructure was institutionalized as the Metal Oxide Semiconductor Implementation Service (MOSIS) system in 1981. Mead and Conway received Electronics magazine's annual award of achievement in 1981.[33][34] VLSI researcher Charles Seitz commented that "MOSIS represented the first period since the pioneering work of Eckert and Mauchley on the ENIAC in the late 1940s that universities and small companies had access to state-of-the-art digital technology."[31]
The impact and research methods underlying the development of the Mead–Conway VLSI design methodology and the MOSIS prototype are detailed in a 1981 Xerox report,[35] the Euromicro Journal,[36] and several historical overviews of computing.[31][37][38][39][40][41][42][43] Mead-Conway's methods also came under ethnographic study in 1980 by PARC anthropologist Lucy Suchman, who published her interviews with Conway in 2021.[44][45]
In 1983, Conway left Xerox to join DARPA, where she was a key architect of the United States Department of Defense's Strategic Computing Initiative.[7][46] In a contemporary USA Today article about Conway's joining DARPA, Mark Stefik, a Xerox scientist who worked with her, said "Lynn would like to live five lives in the course of one life".[47] Douglas Fairbairn, a former Xerox associate, said "She figures out a way so that everybody wins."[47] In The Net Effect, sociologist Thomas Streeter wrote that Conway’s decision to join DARPA reflected her rejection of antiwarliberalism.[48]
In the fall of 2012, the IEEE published a special issue of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine devoted to Conway's career,[52][53] including a career memoir by Conway[15] and peer commentaries by Chuck House,[54] former Director of Engineering at HP, Carlo Séquin,[55] and Kenneth L Shepard.[56][54]James F. Gibbons stated in his tribute that Conway, from his perspective, "was the singular force behind the entire 'foundry' development that emerged."[54][56][57] Subsequently the scope of Conway's contributions gained wider retrospective attention. "Since I didn't #LookLikeanEngineer, few people caught on to what I was really doing back in the 70s and 80s," Conway later said.[17]
In 2020, National Academy of Engineering President John L. Anderson stated that "Lynn Conway is not only a revolutionary pioneer in the design of VLSI systems ... But just as important, Lynn has been very brave in telling her own story, and her perseverance has been a reminder to society that it should not be blind to the innovations of women, people of color, or others who don't fit long outdated – but unfortunately, persistent – perceptions of what an engineer looks like."[17]
Conway coined the "Conway effect" to describe the phenomenon where people "othered" by society, such as women and people of color, are overlooked in later historical accounts of innovations.[58] She described it in the IEEE Computer Society's Computer magazine: "This is seldom deliberate—rather, it's a result of the accumulation of advantage by those who are expected to innovate."[58] The effect drew inspiration from the Matilda effect and Matthew effect.
In 2023, Lynn Conway collaborated with Jim Boulton to create Lines in the Sand,[59] a short comic book that tells the story of the invention VLSI. The launch event[60] took place at the Centre for Computing History on November 23, 2023.
When nearing retirement, Conway learned that the story of her early work at IBM might soon be revealed through the investigations of Mark Smotherman that were being prepared for a 2001 publication.[8] She began coming out in 1999 to friends and colleagues about her gender transition,[61][62][63] using her website to tell her story.[6] Her life story was then more widely reported in 2000 in profiles in Scientific American[11] and the Los Angeles Times.[14] In a later Forbes interview, Conway commented "From the 1970s to 1999 I was recognized as breaking the gender barrier in the computer science field as a woman, but in 2000 it became the transgender barrier I was breaking."[17]
After sharing her story publicly, Conway began working in transgender rights activism to raise awareness, protect and expand trans rights, and promote understanding of gender identity and the process of gender transition.[64] She provided assistance to numerous other transgender women and maintained a website providing medical resources and emotional advice.[65] She maintained a website titled "Transsexual Women's Successes" to, in her words, "provide role models for individuals who are facing gender transition."[66] Her website also provided news related to transgender issues and information on gender-affirming surgery and academic inquiries into the prevalence of transsexualism[67] and transgender and transsexual issues in general.[68][69]
Alice Dreger, in her book Galileo's Middle Finger, criticized Conway for filing a lawsuit against Bailey. Conway alleged Bailey lacked a clinical psychologist license when he wrote letters in support of a young trans woman seeking to transition. Dreger countered that Bailey did not need a license as he provided his services without compensation. Dreger noted that Bailey was transparent in his letters, detailing his brief interactions with the women and his qualifications, which likely explained why Illinois authorities did not act on the complaint.[81] Conway responded, accusing Dreger of misrepresenting the controversy by portraying it as a personal attack on Bailey rather than addressing the broader protest from the trans community.[82]
Conway was a cast member in the first all-transgender performance of The Vagina Monologues in Los Angeles in 2004,[83] and appeared in a Logo documentary film about that event entitled Beautiful Daughters.[61][84]
In 2014, Time Magazine named Conway as one of "21 Transgender People Who Influenced American Culture".[91]
In 2015, she was selected for inclusion in "The Trans100"[92] and was interviewed in 2020 for inclusion in the Trans Activism Oral History Project.[93]
Conway married a woman in 1963, and they had two daughters together. Following their divorce in 1968, Conway was denied access to their children.[14]
In 1987, Conway met her husband Charles "Charlie" Rogers, a professional engineer who shared her interest in the outdoors, including whitewater canoeing and motocross racing.[14][94] They soon started living together and bought a house with 24 acres (9.7 ha) of meadow, marsh, and woodland in rural Jackson, Michigan in 1994.[14] They were married on August 13, 2002.[12][61][95] In 2014, the University of Michigan's The Michigan Engineer alumni magazine documented the connections between Conway's engineering explorations and her personal life.[96][97]
Conway died from a heart condition at her home on June 9, 2024, at the age of 86.[98][99]
Conway, L. (September 23, 1982). "The Design of VLSI Design Methods"(PDF). Proc. VUB European Solid-State Circuits Conference (Invited Lecture). Vrije Universiteit Brüssel, Brussels, Belgium: 106–117.
US 5046022, Conway, Lynn; Volz, Richard & Walker, Michael, "Teleautonomous System and Method Employing Time/Position Synchrony/Desynchrony", issued September 3, 1991
US 5444476, Conway, Lynn, "System and Method for Teleinteraction", issued August 22, 1995
US 5652849, Conway, Lynn & Cohen, Charles, "Apparatus and Method for Remote Control Using a Visual Information Stream", issued July 20, 1997
US 5719622, Conway, Lynn, "Visual Control Selection of Remote Mechanisms", issued February 17, 1998
US 5745782, Conway, Lynn, "Method and System for Organizing and Presenting Audio/Visual Information", issued April 28, 1998
^Carliss Y. Baldwin and Kim B. Clark (2000). Design Rules: The Power of Modularity. MIT Press. ISBN0-262-02466-7.
^ abcNational Research Council (1999), Funding a Revolution: Government Support for Computing Research, National Academy Press (excerptArchived February 17, 2023, at the Wayback Machine)
^"Lynn Conway". Gebbie Lab. January 29, 2024. Archived from the original on April 25, 2024. Retrieved April 24, 2024.
^Allocating Federal Funds for Science and TechnologyArchived October 17, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, by Committee on Criteria for Federal Support of Research and Development, National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington DC, 1995, page 75.
^Conway, Lynn; Suchman, Lucy (February 28, 2021). "Conway-Suchman conversation". Conway Suchman Conversation. Archived from the original on April 25, 2021. Retrieved April 25, 2021.
^Lanzerotti, Mary, ed. (2012). "Editor's Note"(PDF). IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine. 4. IEEE: 1. doi:10.1109/MSSC.2012.2214274. Archived(PDF) from the original on November 29, 2015. Retrieved June 22, 2013.
^Boulton, Jim (2024). Lines in the Sand, The Lynn Conway Story (Unsung Heroes of the Information Age). Unsung Heroes (published February 21, 2024). ASINB0CW1LNGFD.
^ ab"Trans Hero: Lynn Conway". Stonewall 40: Trans Heroes. International Court System. 2009. Archived from the original on June 15, 2009. Retrieved June 14, 2009.
^Conway, Lynn (March 23, 2016), "Our Travels Through Techno-Social Space-Time: Envisioning Incoming Waves of Technological Innovation", 2016 Magill Lecture in Science, Technology and the Arts, Columbia University, archived from the original on October 29, 2022, retrieved February 17, 2023
This is a community hub built on top of the Lynn Conway Wikipedia article. Here, you can discuss, collect, and organize anything related to Lynn Conway. The purpose of the hub is to connect people, foster deeper knowledge, and help improve the root Wikipedia article.
This is a community hub built on top of the Lynn Conway Wikipedia article. Here, you can discuss, collect, and organize anything related to Lynn Conway. The purpose of the hub is to connect people, foster deeper knowledge, and help improve the root Wikipedia article.
Lynn Conway in her office at Xerox PARC in 1983 (Margaret Moulton). Xerox Alto is visible behind.[18]
