Nominated by: Brock Craft, Computing Dept

I think Dame Stephanie “Steve” Shirley put the “HER” in Hero because she was one of the pioneers of supporting women in Computing. She founded a software company called Freelance Programmers in 1962 to help women obtain work opportunities. It was an ideal fit for women supporting children and directly challenged the pervasive attitude that women weren’t suited to highly technical roles. Like many of her predecessors, Dame Shirley adopted a male name to get her in the door, surprising some of her prospective clients as she walked into boardrooms. Her company won major government contracts, designed scheduling and shipping software, and determined the statistical analyses for the black box sensor array on Concorde.