Erna Schneider Hoover
| Erna Schneider Hoover | |
|---|---|
| Born | Erna Schneider June 19, 1926 Irvington, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Institutions | Bell Labs |
| Alma mater |
Wellesley B.A., Yale Ph.D. |
| Thesis |
An Analysis of Contrary-to-Fact Conditional Sentences (1951) |
| Known for | Computerized system for phone traffic |
| Notable awards |
National Inventors Hall of Fame, 2008 Wellesley alumni achievement award |
| Spouse | Charles Wilson Hoover, Jr. |
Dr. Erna Schneider Hoover (born June 19, 1926) is an American mathematician notable for inventing a computerized telephone switching method which "revolutionized modern communication" according to several reports. It prevented system overloads by monitoring call center traffic and prioritizing tasks on phone switching systems to enable more robust service during peak calling times. At Bell Laboratories where she worked for over 32 years, Hoover was described as an important pioneer for women in the field of computer technology.
Erna Schneider was born on June 19, 1926 in Irvington, New Jersey. Her family lived in South Orange, New Jersey and her father was a dentist and her mother was a teacher. She had a younger brother who died from polio at the age of five. She loved swimming, sailing, canoeing, and was interested in science at an early age. According to one source, she read the biography of Marie Curie which suggested to her that she could succeed in a scientific field despite the prevailing ideas about gender roles at the time. Hoover attended Wellesley College where she studied classical and medieval philosophy and history. She graduated from Wellesley in 1948 with honors, earning a bachelor's degree, and she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and was honored as a Durant Scholar. She earned her Ph.D from Yale University in philosophy and foundations of mathematics in 1951.
Hoover was a professor at Swarthmore College from 1951-54 where she taught philosophy and logic. However, she had been unable to win a tenure-track position, possibly because of her gender and marital status, according to one view. In 1953, she married Charles Wilson Hoover, Jr., and he was very supportive of his wife's career pursuits. In 1954, she joined Bell Labs as a senior technical associate, and was promoted in 1956. According to one source, the internal training program was the "equivalent of a master's degree in computer science." Switching systems were moving from electronic to computer-based technologies. Problems happened when a call center would be inundated with thousands of calls in a short amount of time, overwhelming the unreliable electronic relays, and causing the entire system to "freeze up."
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