Klara von Neumann, a "Lost Woman of Science"

Katie Hafner, author and longtime NY Times reporter, is fronting a podcast called Lost Women of Science. It's a professionally produced project, in collaboration with PRX and Scientific American. Each season focuses on a single "lost woman" and the second season "A Grasshopper in Very Tall Grass," released in April 2022, is all about Klara von Neumann. She's a major character in my book ENIAC in Action and so the podcast finished up recording about seven hours of interviews with me and enlisting me to review several of the scripts for accuracy. I'm featured prominently in episodes three ("The Experimental Rabbit") and four ("Netherworld") but if you start at the beginning you'll learn a lot about her life and early career that was news to me. Unlike most journalists writing about ENIAC and the women who used it, this team has really dug into primary sources and consulted with expert historians to tell a set of stories that go far beyond the typical recycled anecdotes.

To launch the new season, Katie worked with the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA to set up an event on the evening of April 5 with the two of us in conversation, with Harvey Mudd College president Maria Klawe as the moderator. There's a writeup of the event on the CHM blog, including video snippets and (if you scroll down to the bottom) a slickly produced video of the entire event.