Lynn Conway, a pioneer in the design of microchips at the heart of consumer electronics who overcame discrimination as a transgender person, has died at the age of 86.
Her death on June 9 was announced by the University of Michigan, where Conway was on the engineering faculty until her retirement in 1998.
“She has overcome so much, but she has not been angry about the past her entire life,” said Valeria Bertacco, professor of computer science and vice provost at UM. “She was always focused on the next innovation.”
Conway is credited with developing a simpler method for designing microchips in the 1970s, along with Carver Mead of the California Institute of Technology, the university said.
“Chips were designed by drawing them with paper and pencil, like an architect’s blueprints in the pre-digital age,” says Bertacco. “Conway’s work developed algorithms that allowed our field to use software to arrange millions and later billions of transistors on a chip.”
Conway joined IBM in 1964 after earning two degrees from Columbia University. But IBM fired her after she revealed in 1968 that she was undergoing a gender transition. The company apologized in 2020 – more than 50 years later – and awarded her a Lifetime Achievement Award for her work.
An employee who is transgender brought Conway’s story to the attention of managers.
“We deeply regret what you have experienced, and I know I speak for all of us,” said Diane Gherson, senior vice president of Human Resources, according to a transcript.
Dario Gill, director of research, told Conway: “Quite simply, you helped define the modern computer industry.”
Conway told The New York Times that the turnaround was unexpected and ‘stunning’.
IBM acknowledged her death Friday.
“Lynn Conway broke down barriers for the trans community and pushed the boundaries of technology through revolutionary work that continues to impact our lives today,” said Nickle LaMoreaux, IBM’s Chief Human Resources Officer.
In a 2014 video posted to YouTubeConway reflected on her transition, saying, “There was hardly any knowledge in our society, even about the existence of transgender identities” in the 1960s.
“I think a lot of that is really being affected now, because parents with transgender children are discovering… when they allow the person to blossom into who they need to be, they often see remarkable blossoming,” Conway says.
The native of Mount Vernon, New York, held five U.S. patents. Conway’s career included work at Xerox, the National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, part of the U.S. Department of Defense. She also held honorary degrees from many universities, including Princeton University.
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AP reporter Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this story.
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