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Phyllis Fox
American mathematician and computer scientist

Phyllis Ann Fox (March 13, 1923 – May 23, 2017) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer and computer scientist.

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Early life and education

Fox was born on March 13, 1923,3 and raised in Colorado.4 She did her undergraduate studies at Wellesley College, earning a B.A. in mathematics in 1944.5

From 1944 until 1946 she worked for General Electric as an operator for their differential analyser project. She earned a second baccalaureate, a B.S. in electrical engineering, from the University of Colorado in 1948.67 She then moved on to graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning an M.S. in 1949 in electrical engineering, and a doctorate (Sc.D.) in mathematics in 1954 under the supervision of Chia-Chiao Lin.8910 During this time, she also worked as an assistant on the Whirlwind project at MIT, under Jay Forrester.11

Later career

From 1954 to 1958, Fox worked on the numerical solution of partial differential equations on the Univac, for the Computing Center of the United States Atomic Energy Commission at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University. In 1958, following her husband, she returned to Jay Forrester's system dynamics research group at MIT, where she became part of the team that wrote the DYNAMO programming language.121314 She then became a collaborator on the first LISP interpreter, and the principal author of the first LISP manual.15

In 1963, she moved from MIT to the Newark College of Engineering, where she became a full professor in 1972. During this time, she also consulted for Bell Labs, where she moved in 1973 to work on a highly portable numerics library (PORT). She retired from Bell Labs in 1984.1617

Personal life and death

Fox married George Sternlieb. They moved to Short Hills, New Jersey in 1949. Fox died on May 23, 2017, at the age of 94.18

Recognition

Fox was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1986.19

References

  1. Resume and brief autobiography for Phyllis Fox, for Wellesley College Class of 1944 Record Book, Jan 1974, SIAM history website [1]. http://history.siam.org/sup/Fox_resume_bio.pdf ↩

  2. Haigh, Thomas (2005). "Phyllis Fox" (PDF). The History of Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing - Oral Histories. SIAM. Retrieved May 12, 2010. ↩

  3. Who's who of American Women, 1991-1992. Marquis Who's Who. 1991. p. 333. ISBN 9780837904177. Retrieved January 5, 2021. 9780837904177 ↩

  4. Haigh, Thomas (2005). "Phyllis Fox" (PDF). The History of Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing - Oral Histories. SIAM. Retrieved May 12, 2010. ↩

  5. "The History of Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing". history.siam.org. Retrieved September 27, 2018. http://history.siam.org/oralhistories/fox.htm ↩

  6. Resume and brief autobiography for Phyllis Fox, for Wellesley College Class of 1944 Record Book, Jan 1974, SIAM history website [1]. http://history.siam.org/sup/Fox_resume_bio.pdf ↩

  7. Haigh, Thomas (2005). "Phyllis Fox" (PDF). The History of Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing - Oral Histories. SIAM. Retrieved May 12, 2010. ↩

  8. Resume and brief autobiography for Phyllis Fox, for Wellesley College Class of 1944 Record Book, Jan 1974, SIAM history website [1]. http://history.siam.org/sup/Fox_resume_bio.pdf ↩

  9. Haigh, Thomas (2005). "Phyllis Fox" (PDF). The History of Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing - Oral Histories. SIAM. Retrieved May 12, 2010. ↩

  10. Phyllis Ann Fox at the Mathematics Genealogy Project https://mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=62631 ↩

  11. Resume and brief autobiography for Phyllis Fox, for Wellesley College Class of 1944 Record Book, Jan 1974, SIAM history website [1]. http://history.siam.org/sup/Fox_resume_bio.pdf ↩

  12. Resume and brief autobiography for Phyllis Fox, for Wellesley College Class of 1944 Record Book, Jan 1974, SIAM history website [1]. http://history.siam.org/sup/Fox_resume_bio.pdf ↩

  13. Haigh, Thomas (2005). "Phyllis Fox" (PDF). The History of Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing - Oral Histories. SIAM. Retrieved May 12, 2010. ↩

  14. "Origin of System Dynamics". systemdynamics.org. Retrieved March 30, 2023. https://systemdynamics.org/origin-of-system-dynamics/ ↩

  15. McCarthy, J.; Brayton, R.; Edwards, D.; Fox, P.; Hodes, L.; Luckham, D.; Maling, K.; Park, D.; Russell, S. (March 1960). "LISP I Programmer's Manual" (PDF). Boston, Massachusetts: Artificial Intelligence Group, M.I.T. Computation Center and Research Laboratory. Retrieved May 11, 2010. /wiki/John_McCarthy_(computer_scientist) ↩

  16. Resume and brief autobiography for Phyllis Fox, for Wellesley College Class of 1944 Record Book, Jan 1974, SIAM history website [1]. http://history.siam.org/sup/Fox_resume_bio.pdf ↩

  17. Haigh, Thomas (2005). "Phyllis Fox" (PDF). The History of Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing - Oral Histories. SIAM. Retrieved May 12, 2010. ↩

  18. "Alumnae Memorials". magazine.wellesley.edu. Wellesley College. Fall 2017. Retrieved March 30, 2023. https://magazine.wellesley.edu/fall-2017/alumnae-memorials ↩

  19. "Historic Fellows". American Association for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved April 16, 2021. https://www.aaas.org/fellows/historic ↩