Person: Antonelli, Kathleen Rita McNulty Mauchly

Kathleen McNulty Antonelli was an Irish-born American computer programmer who was one of the first to work with the early ENIAC machine.

Kathleen McNulty's parents were James McNulty (1890-1977) and Anne Nelis (1892-1966).
In early 1919 James McNulty was involved in an attempt to seize guns from the home of a protestant JP.
On the night that Kathleen was born, 12 February, he was arrested at his home and kept in Derry Jail.
Kathleen's education was in Catholic Schools in the United States beginning in 1927.
After graduating Kay McNulty answered an advertisement by the Moore School of Engineering for "math majors" and she applied, was interviewed and was employed as a mathematician; she worked on preparing firing tables for guns.
The ENIAC computer (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) which McNulty refers to in the above quote was being constructed by John Mauchly and John Eckert in the Moore School of Engineering during the war years.
It was designed for the specific task of compiling tables for the trajectories of bombs and shells to take over the calculations which McNulty and about 75 other women were carrying out.
McNulty was one of six women who became operators of ENIAC making very substantial contributions to computer science, although it took many years before they received the credit which they deserve for their pioneering work.
Kay Antonelli was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame in 1997.
Antonelli died of cancer at Keystone Hospice in Wyndmoor and her funeral was held in St Anthony's Roman Catholic Church, Ambler.

Born 12 February 1921, Creeslough, County Donegal, Ireland. Died 20 April 2006, Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, USA.

View full biography at MacTutor

Origin Ireland, Women

Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0!

O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive