Sister Mary Kenneth Keller

Sister Mary Kenneth Keller (Evelyn Marie Keller) was an American computer scientist who helped create the computer language BASIC. She was also the first female in the United States to get a Ph.D. in computer science. Her thesis work focused on making algorithms that performed analytic differential on algebraic expressions.

Evelyn Marie Kenneth was born on December 13, 1913. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio. She lived most of her life in Chicago, Michigan, before she began studying computer science.

She joined the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary congregation. She was assigned to teach elementary school and high school. She taught for 29 years. Keller earned her B.A. in Mathematical Sciences, and Master's Degree in mathematics at DePaul University.    She went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and became the first woman to have a Ph.D. in computer science. She resumed teaching and took side classes all the while.

She did graduate work at Purdue, the University of Michigan, and Dartmouth College. She became the first female staff member in their previously male-only computer science center and led it for 20 years. She also taught at Clarke University and established a master’s degree program for computer science there. Another one of her achievements was working on the development of the computer language BASIC.

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