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JWR VerifiedJWR-2026-000239

First Jewish Woman to Receive the Turing Award

Record holder

Barbara LiskovPerson

Record value

27 June 2009

Country represented: United StatesAchievement location: Cambridge, Massachusetts, United StatesAchievement date: 27 June 2009Current record

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Verified by Jewish World RecordsHow we verify records

Barbara Liskov at the ACM Turing Centenary Celebration in 2012.

Barbara Liskov, recipient of the 2008 ACM A.M. Turing Award, at the ACM Turing Centenary Celebration.Dennis Hamilton / Wikimedia CommonsSourceCC BY 2.0

Official record definition

The earliest woman who satisfied JWR Jewish Eligibility at Achievement and was personally named recipient of the competitive ACM A.M. Turing Award. Official award-year chronology identifies the qualifying recipient; for RECORD_VALUE, JWR uses the documented formal presentation date.

Measurement methodology

Official ACM/MIT confirmation of the formal award presentation date, supported by ACM laureate chronology and Jewish Eligibility review.

Measurement point: Formal presentation of the 2008 ACM A.M. Turing Award at the ACM gathering in San Diego.

Record story

Barbara Liskov is recognized by JWR as the first Jewish woman to receive the Turing Award. The Association for Computing Machinery selected her as the recipient of the 2008 ACM A.M. Turing Award for foundational contributions to programming languages, data abstraction, fault tolerance and distributed computing. Although the award carries the year 2008, ACM announced Liskov as the recipient in March 2009, and she formally received the award at an ACM gathering in San Diego on 27 June 2009. That formal presentation date is therefore used as the Record Value. The full official name, ACM A.M. Turing Award, is retained in the definition and supporting evidence, while the public-facing title is shortened to the widely understood “Turing Award.”

Media

How JWR verified this record

Verification date
27 September 2026
Verification standard
JWR Verification Standard 1.0

Achievement evidence

ACM identifies Barbara Liskov as the 2008 A.M. Turing Award recipient for con...

Superiority evidence

The only earlier woman recipient was Frances E. Allen in 2006. Allen’s local ...

Jewish Eligibility — Verified by JWR

Jewish eligibility verification

Evidence establishing that the holder qualifies as Jewish for JWR purposes.

  • Jewish Women in Computer Science — Jewish Women’s Archive

Achievement / record verification

Evidence establishing that the holder achieved the result and holds the record as defined.

  • Barbara Liskov — A.M. Turing Award Laureate — Association for Computing Machinery
  • Barbara Liskov wins Turing Award — Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Superiority / counter-candidate verification

Evidence comparing the result with other candidates relevant to the record claim.

  • Obituary of Frances Elizabeth Allen — Peru Gazette / Hamilton Funeral Home

Jewish eligibility, achievement and superiority evidence retain their separate classifications and are never merged. Context and provenance are not presented as proof of the achievement. Restricted evidence and internal research notes are never published. Learn more about the seven-stage process on the verification page.

Sources & Verification

  • Barbara Liskov — A.M. Turing Award Laureate

    Holder-controlled websiteAssociation for Computing Machinery· 2008

    What this proves: Confirms Barbara Liskov as the 2008 ACM A.M. Turing Award recipient and states the official award citation.

  • Barbara Liskov wins Turing Award

    Independent publicationMassachusetts Institute of Technology· 10 March 2009

    What this proves: Independently confirms Liskov’s Turing Award and that she was the second woman recipient overall.

  • Jewish Women in Computer Science

    Independent publicationJewish Women’s Archive· 23 June 2021

    What this proves: Includes Liskov in the institutional encyclopedia’s account of Jewish women in computer science and documents her career and Turing achievement.

  • Obituary of Frances Elizabeth Allen

    Independent publicationPeru Gazette / Hamilton Funeral Home· 9 August 2020

    What this proves: Documents Allen’s funeral at St. Augustine’s Catholic Church and identifies her brother as Rev. Philip Allen, providing positive Christian-affiliation evidence.

  • Barbara Liskov computer scientist 2010 image by Kenneth C. Zirkel — Wikimedia Commons

    Primary sourceWikimedia Commons / Kenneth C. Zirkel· 29 May 2010

    What this proves: Documents the portrait, photographer Kenneth C. Zirkel and CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported license.

History

  1. Verified

    Verified according to JWR Verification Standard 1.0.

  2. Publishedv1

    Published to the official JWR registry.

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