Lynn Conway's Early Life

You have to go through the bad to get to the good. Lynn Conway went through being judged and feeling like an “outsider” all of her early life. Through these struggles she was faced with losing the people who meant the most to her and losing her job. Although she was put through this, she didn’t give up and was an influential engineer and computer scientist with many accomplishments as a male and a female. From designing chips to writing books she made her mark on technology and it wouldn’t be the same without her. Lynn Conway’s life began in Mount Vernon, NY on January 10, 1938. As a child, she was very shy and not very social. Since she didn’t have a close relationship with her family and not many friends, Lynn turned to building things and engineering. During high school she made excellent grades, but still wasn’t comfortable in her own body. Struggling with gender dysphonia made her become interested with science which eventually led to computer science.

She decided that she wanted to attend Massachusetts Institute of Technology and pursue a career in it. After attempting a gender transition and failing, she ended up dropping out. A few years later after getting herself back together, Lynn decided to finish her schooling at Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science. In 1962, she graduated with a B.S. and M.S.E.E. degree. It didn’t take long for Lynn’s career to take off after she completed college. She was recruited by IMB research in 1964 in New York. While there she worked on the architecture teams designing an advanced supercomputer. The team worked on the ACS project which led to the first superscalar design. Not too long after these accomplishments, Lynn became a patient of Harry Benjamin, a transgender expert. She got her gender changed which resulted in being fired from IMB, losing the friends she had, and being torn away from her