Phyllis Fox

Phyllis Ann Fox (March 13, 1923 – May 23, 2017) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer and computer scientist.

Early life and education Fox was born on March 13, 1923, and raised in Colorado.

From 1944 until 1946 she worked for General Electric as an operator for their differential analyser project. She earned a second baccalaureate, a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering, from the University of Colorado Boulder in 1948. During this time, she also worked as an assistant on the Whirlwind project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, under Jay Wright Forrester. She then became a collaborator on the first LISP interpreter, and was the main author of the first LISP manual.

In 1963, she moved from Massachusetts Institute of Technology to the Newark College of Engineering, where she became a full professor in 1972. During this time, she also consulted for Bell Labs, where she moved in 1973 to work on a highly portable numerics library (PORT). She retired from Bell Labs in 1984.

Recognition Fox was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1986.