Jean Bartoik Research Paper

Jean Bartik (née Jennings) was a famous mathematician that was one of the original programmers for the ENIAC computer. Born in 1924 in a rural county in Missouri with six other siblings, Jean and her family all had backgrounds in teaching so her proficiency in mathematics at a young age was no surprise. “When she entered Northwest Missouri State Teachers College she intended to take a degree in journalism, but she did not like her advisor so quickly decided to change to major in mathematics” (O'Connor and Robertson, 2012). This was when she became the black sheep in her family because she was the only one who didn’t go into education.

The start of Bartik’s career came in 1945, near the end of World War 2, when the Army was looking to recruit math graduates for a wartime project in Philadelphia. Originally, she started out working as a “computer” calculating trajectories for ballistics for guns. However, her big break came when she was given the opportunity to apply to be one of the operators of the recently developed ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Inegrator and Computer). Because the ENIAC was so complex to

“The BINAC (or Binary Automatic Computer) was the first computer built from the start as a ‘stored-program computer,’ an innovation that made it possible for computers to ‘remember’ their software and not have to be constantly reprogrammed every time a new problem was introduced” (Smith, 2007). Jean Jennings Bartik was a pioneer in software engineering. Her development of fundamental programming techniques such as subroutines and nesting are important concepts still in use today, without them computer code would be a lot more verbose. Also, during Bartik’s career she had the experience of working her way up the ladder; from being a simple computer calculating trajectories by hand to a project manager while developing the BINAC and