Browsing by Subject "Database access systems"

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    Oral history interview with Dana Becker Dunn
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2016-01-07) Dunn, Dana Becker
    Dana Becker Dunn graduated from a rural Illinois high school, then attended Southern Illinois University as a math major taking numerous computing courses and graduating in 1972. She joined Bells Labs as one of the last STA ‘courtship’ hires, completing a master’s in electrical engineering and computer science from Northwestern University. Her technical career began in operating systems programming, with a specialty in relational databases; then she was promoted into supervisory positions in the AT&T headquarters in New Jersey. As a Sloan Fellow she completed an executive MBA at MIT in 1984 then went to work for AT&T information systems division. Among her managerial responsibilities were connecting marketing and technical staffs; overseeing large operational groups in marketing and communications; and in 1994 separating Lucent Technologies from AT&T. She retired in 2001 as an officer of Avaya. She reflects on the transformation of women’s issues within AT&T, including a suggestion that with overt forms of discrimination largely banished, it may have ‘gone underground’ and be more difficult to locate. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
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    Oral history interview with M. Kathleen (Kathy) Detrano
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-17) Detrano, M. Kathleen
    Kathy Detrano describes her childhood and single-sex Catholic education that led her to major in mathematics at Chestnut Hill College (near Philadelphia). After graduating, she came to Bell Laboratories in the late 1960s initially to work on the Safeguard Ballistic Missile Defense System, then moved to database access and quality control assignments as a manager. She describes Bell’s affirmative action programs, including several anecdotes about male managers, including those who supported women. The interview discusses specific strategies women at Bell used to confront and diffuse gender discrimination. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”