Milly Koss

Adele Mildred Koss, known as Milly Koss (11 July 1928 – 11 September 2012) was an American pioneering computer programmer. The Association for Women in Computing awarded her an Ada Lovelace Award in 2000.

She attended Philadelphia High School for Girls and graduated in mathematics from University of Pennsylvania in 1950. Following her first job interview with an insurance company, Koss, who was engaged at the time, was rejected for the reason that married women would have children and leave.

She worked at Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC) under Grace Hopper, programming the UNIVAC I. Her first big project was the development of what has become known as the 'Editing Generator', a sophisticated program to automatically format data for printing. During her time at EMCC she also wrote some of the first sorting programs, and with Hopper worked on a link loader (at that time called a compiler). After working for several other companies including Burroughs Corporation, Remington Rand, Philco, and Control Data Corporation (CDC), Koss moved to Harvard University where she stayed for 27 years until she retired in 1994, having been Associate Director of the Office for Information Technology and the University's Information Security Officer.

In 1997, she was awarded a Pioneer Award, one of seven women to be so honoured, at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.

Koss died on 11 September 2012, survived by three children and three grandchildren. Her husband Norman A. Koss had pre-deceased her: they had been married for 60 years.