The Science Center is building a monument to honor the women who worked on the ENIAC

By the end of the year, the women who worked on the world’s first computer will be immortalized in University City.

The University City Science Center is building an “Innovators Walk of Fame,” like the Hollywood Walk of Fame but for science and technology.
Last week, the Science Center announced the ten women who would be honored on the Walk of Fame, including the “female computers” who worked on the ENIAC and Judy Wicks, the Urban Outfitters cofounder who pioneered the local food movement with the White Dog Cafe. Those women will join the first class of innovators, which was announced two years ago and didn’t include any women. (The Science Center specifically focused on women for this second class.)
At the ceremony, the children of ENIAC programmer Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli — Bill Mauchly and his sisters — accepted the award for their mother, who passed away in 2006.

Find the list of awardees below, as provided by the Science Center.
Medicine: Rebecca J. Cole

• Rebecca J. Cole, a Philadelphia native, overcame gender and racial obstacles to become the second African-American woman to receive a medical degree in the United States. Dr. Cole graduated from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1867 — just two years after the Civil War ended. Dr. Cole went on to practice medicine in South Carolina before returning to Philadelphia where she pioneered access to medical care and legal services for impoverished women and children by opening a Women’s Directory Center. Sponsored by Drexel University.

Science: Stephanie Kwolek

• Stephanie Kwolek invented the technology behind Kevlar, a virtually bulletproof fiber that has saved the lives of countless first responders and military personnel. Five times stronger than steel, Kevlar is a groundbreaking material best known for its use in bullet-proof vests. Today it can also be found in products ranging from space suits to storm shelters. An industrial chemist at DuPont in Wilmington, Del., during the 1960’s, Ms. Kwolek was one of the few women in her field at the time.

Community Engagement: Judith Rodin

• A pioneer and innovator throughout her career, Judith Rodin was the first woman named to lead an Ivy League institution and is the first woman to serve as The Rockefeller Foundation’s president. While President of the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Rodin spearheaded groundbreaking programs that engaged the campus with the surrounding community and provided a model that is replicated by other universities nationally and internationally. Sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania.

Social Impact: Judy Wicks

• When Inc. Magazine named Judy Wicks one of America’s 25 Most Fascinating Entrepreneurs, they said “she put in place more progressive business practices per square foot than any other entrepreneur.” Her West Philadelphia restaurant, White Dog Café, became a leader in the local food movement and grew a national reputation for community engagement, environmental stewardship, and responsible business practices. A founder of the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia and cofounder of the International Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, Wicks is an activist and a pioneer who is dedicated to building a more compassionate, environmentally sustainable, and locally based economy. “Business is beautiful,” Wicks says, “when it’s a vehicle for serving the common good.”

Technology: Women of ENIAC – Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli, Jean Jennings Bartik, Frances Elizabeth Holberton, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Frances Bilas Spence, Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum

• In 1946, six brilliant young female mathematicians, working secretly for the U.S. Army’s World War II efforts at the University of Pennsylvania, programmed the first all-electronic, programmable, general-purpose computer, the ENIAC. No programming tools or language existed at the time. Yet, Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli, Jean Jennings Bartik, Frances Elizabeth Holberton, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Frances Bilas Spence and Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum learned to program without manuals or courses, using only logical diagrams. When ENIAC debuted in 1947, it ran the ballistics trajectory programmed by the six women in mere seconds and changed the world. Sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania.

Watch the Science Center’s video about the second class of innovators below.