Hilary Kahn

Early life and education Kahn was born in 1943 in Cape Town, South Africa and moved in 1960 to England; she said later that she did so to pursue her education and escape the politics of her native country.

Although Kahn never pursued a PhD, she was a faculty member who supervised a number of PhD students; during her tenure she started the computer-aided design (CAD) group at Manchester, worked on the Manchester MU5 computer, and was extensively involved in standards development, most notably for the EDIF project.

Kahn was also active in preserving the history of early computing at Manchester and in 1998 organised a large-scale celebration Computer 50 for the 50th anniversary of the Manchester Baby, the first stored-program computer, which was completed in 1948.

Kahn retired from her faculty position in 2006.

Personal life Kahn's husband Brian Napper was also a Manchester faculty member. The couple had one child, a daughter, born in 1977. Kahn died in November 2007.