“If you want to change the future, start living as if you’re already there.” – Lynn Conway
Lynn Conway was born in Mt. Vernon, NY in 1938. Conway was fascinated with astronomy and math, building her own telescope as a kid, and eventually pursued a B.S. in Physics at MIT. Conway experienced gender dysphoria throughout her youth, and, after an unsupported attempt to transition her gender during college, Conway left MIT in 1957. Conway later earned a B.S. and M.S.E.E. in 1962 and 1963 from Columbia University and began working at IBM in 1964 to design supercomputers. Despite major project contributions, Conway was fired in 1968 when she underwent her gender transition. IBM would apologize to Conway in 2020 after public backlash. Conway would find work as a computer architect at Memorex and Xerox while keeping her past in secret. In her work, Conway developed multi project wafers which allow multiple computer components on a single computer chip and revolutionized computer design and size. In 1978, Conway became a visiting associate professor at MIT and taught computer chip design methodology. Conway would become associate dean of engineering at the University of Michigan in 1985. Conway publicly shared her gender transition in 2000 and, today, is a strong transgender rights activist.