Mary Ann Mansigh
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Mary Ann Mansigh | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 12, 1932 |
| Died | August 24, 2024 (aged 91–92) |
| Known for | Computer programmer |
Mary Ann Ruth Mansigh Karlsen (September 12, 1932 – August 24, 2024)[1] was an American computer programmer who was active in the 1950s in the use of scientific computers.[2]
Mansigh was born on September 12, 1932 in Otter Tail County, Minnesota.[3] She attended the University of Minnesota Duluth on a scholarship from 1950 to 1954, where she studied physics, chemistry and mathematics.[3][1] In 1955, she took a position at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as a software engineer,[4] where she would remain until she retired in 1994, working on over 13 generations of supercomputers from the UNIVAC (1955) to the Cray I (1994).[1]
At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, she worked with Berni Alder and Tom Wainwright in the implementation of molecular dynamics in the mid twentieth century,[5][6] ultimately working exclusively with Alder for over twenty-five years.[4][7] She is regarded as a pioneer in programming and computing, particularly molecular dynamics computing,[8][9] whom Dutch computational physicist Daan Frenkel noted as being one of the very few notable female computer programmers, with Arianna W. Rosenbluth, that were active in the 1950s and 1960s.[10]
Initially forgotten, except in annotations and oral transcripts, she has received increased attention in recent times,[1] with events and talks on her legacy.[8] In 2019, she had a lecture series at the Centre Européen de Calcul Atomique et Moléculaire (CECAM) named in her honour.[11][12] Modern academics have noted her unfair absence as an author in published academic papers describing the results of computer programmes designed with her pioneering molecular dynamics computing code.[13]
Mansigh died on August 24, 2024 at the age of 91.[3]
