Kathleen Booth facts for kids

Kathleen Hylda Valerie Booth (born 9 July 1922) was a very important computer scientist. She wrote the very first assembly language. This is a special low-level computer language. She also helped design the first computer systems at Birkbeck College, University of London. She worked on three different early computers: the ARC, SEC, and APE(X)C.

About Kathleen Booth

Kathleen Britten was born in Stourbridge, England, on 9 July 1922. She studied mathematics at the University of London. She earned her first degree in 1944. Later, she got a PhD in Applied Mathematics in 1950.

In 1950, she married her colleague, Andrew Donald Booth. They had two children together.

Her Work in Computers

Kathleen Booth worked at Birkbeck College from 1946 to 1962. In 1947, she traveled to the United States. She was a research assistant for Andrew Booth. They met with famous computer scientist John von Neumann at Princeton.

When she returned to the UK, she helped write an important paper. This paper described how to improve the ARC computer. She also created the assembly language for the ARC computer. Plus, she helped build and keep the ARC computer parts working.

Building Early Computers

Kathleen and Andrew Booth's team at Birkbeck was quite small. But they achieved amazing things! Between 1947 and 1953, they created three different computers:

• ARC (Automatic Relay Computer)
• SEC (Simple Electronic Computer)
• APE(X)C (All-purpose Electronic (Rayon) Computer)

Andrew built the computers, and Kathleen programmed them. This was a huge accomplishment for such a small team with limited money.

Teaching and Writing

Kathleen Booth often wrote papers about her work. These papers explained how the ARC and APE(X)C systems worked. In 1953, she co-wrote a book called "Automatic Digital Calculators." This book showed how to plan and write computer programs.

In 1957, she helped start the School of Computer Science and Information Systems. This was at Birkbeck College. In 1958, she taught a programming course there. She also wrote one of the first books that explained how to program APE(X)C computers.

Later Career and Research

Kathleen Booth worked at several places during her career. From 1944 to 1946, she was a Junior Scientific Officer. Later, she was a Research Scientist. From 1952 to 1962, she was a Research Fellow and Lecturer at Birkbeck College.

In 1962, Kathleen and her family moved to Canada. She worked at the University of Saskatchewan. Then, from 1972 to 1978, she was a Professor of Mathematics at Lakehead University.

Kathleen Booth also did research on neural networks. These are computer systems that learn like the human brain. Her work helped create programs that could recognize patterns and characters. This was like how animals recognize things.

She retired from Lakehead University in 1978. Her last paper was published in 1993. She was 71 years old. This paper was about using neural networks to identify marine mammals. She wrote it with her son, Dr. Ian J. M. Booth.

In 2019, Kathleen Booth was reported to be living in retirement. She was 97 years old.

See also

In Spanish: Kathleen Booth para niños