Lynn Ann Conway (January 2, 1938 – June 9, 2024) was an American computer scientist, electrical engineer, and transgender rights activist. In the 1960s, while working at IBM, Conway invented generalized dynamic instruction handling, a key advancement used in out-of-order execution, used by most modern computer processors to improve performance. IBM fired Conway in 1968 after she revealed her intention to undergo a gender transition, which the company apologized for in 2020. Following her transition, Conway adopted a new name and identity and restarted her career. She worked at Xerox PARC from 1973 to 1983, where she led the "LSI Systems" group. Together with Carver Mead she co-led the Mead–Conway VLSI chip design revolution in very large-scale integrated (VLSI) microchip design, which reshaped the field of microchip design in the 1980s. Conway joined the University of Michigan as a professor of electrical engineering and computer science in 1985. She retired from active teaching and research in 1998 as professor emerita. Conway began publicly discussing her gender transition in 1999 and was a transgender rights activist until her death in 2024.
Early life and education Conway was born in Mount Vernon, New York, on January 2, 1938, to Christine Alice (née Burney) Savage (1904–1977) and Rufus Savage (1904–1966). Raised as a boy, Conway was brought up in Hartsdale and White Plains, New York, as a shy child who experienced gender dysphoria. After her parents divorced in 1945, Conway and her younger brother, Blair Savage (1941–2022), were raised by their mother. Conway became fascinated by astronomy (building a 6-inch (150 mm) reflector telescope one summer) and did well in math and science in school. After graduating from White Plains High School in 1955, Conway entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and began an attempted gender transition in 1957. Facing a lack of social and medical support, she withdrew from MIT in 1959 and eventually detransitioned. After working as an electronics technician for several years, Conway resumed education at Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science, earning B.S. and M.S.E.E. degrees in 1962 and 1963.
Early research at IBM Conway was recruited by IBM Research in Yorktown Heights, New York, in 1964, and was soon selected to join the architecture team designing an advanced supercomputer, working alongside John Cocke, Brian Randell, Herbert Schorr, Ed Sussenguth, Fran Allen and other IBM researchers on the Advanced Computing Systems (ACS) project, inventing multiple-issue out-of-order dynamic instruction scheduling while working there. The Computer History Museum has stated that "The ACS architecture ... appears to have been the first 'superscalar' design".
Gender transition After learning about Harry Benjamin's pioneering research in healthcare for transsexual women, which included the feasibility of sex reassignment surgery, Conway sought his assistance. Struggling with severe clinical depression due to gender dysphoria, she contacted Benjamin, who agreed to provide counseling and prescribed hormone replacement therapy, which Conway resumed in 1967. While struggling with life in a male role, Conway had married a woman in 1963 and had two children. Under the legal constraints then in place, she was denied access to their children after transitioning. Although she had hoped to be allowed to transition on the job, IBM fired Conway in 1968 after she revealed her intention to transition. In 2020, IBM publicly apologized to Conway for firing her at a public event with Diane Gherson, then IBM's senior vice president of human relations. At the event, Conway was awarded the IBM Lifetime Achievement Award for her work at IBM and later work.
Post-transition career
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