[jkingsbery]

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Kenneth_Keller and https://www.cs.wisc.edu/2019/03/18/2759/, she is also tied for being the first American to receive a PhD in computer science (one other person received his PhD on the same exact day). They are also potentially (it seems there's some debate) the first CS PhDs (https://studylib.net/doc/8193211/who-earned-first-computer-s...).

Great line from that last link: "Prior to 1965 ... there were none, and after 1965 there was a nun."

[fanf2]

The first PhD in computing was David Wheeler in 1951 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wheeler_(computer_scient...

[jkingsbery]

Interesting, wasn't aware!

I was pretty ignorant about this before today. What I've learned today is (1) that there are several competing claims for who has the first PhD in Computer Science (or the first PhD by an American, or Woman...), (2) all of those claims depend not on the quality of the work by the person but rather by whether something counts as "computer science" (does it have to be issued by a Computer Science department? Department with Computer Science in the name? Can the degree just say it's for Computer Science? Does it depend on the thesis topic?), and (3) for the most part none of the candidates really care too much about the distinctions about who was 1st.

But it is an interesting exercise in learning about computer scientists that I didn't know much about before.

[hashhar]

His PhD was in Mathematics AFAIR. Also note that the Wikipedia article is missing a citation on that point and further discussion on the talk page.

[fanf2]

The title of his PhD dissertation was "Automatic computing with the EDSAC"

[joshuaissac]

The claim is properly referenced now.