CLARENCE “SKIP” ELLIS

Clarence "Skip" Ellis is the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in Computer Science (1969).After his Ph.D., he continued his work on supercomputers at Bell Telephone Laboratories. Ellis has worked as a researcher and developer at IBM, Xerox, Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation, Los Alamos Scientific Labs, and Argonne National Lab. His academic experience includes teaching at Stanford University, the University of Texas, MIT, Stevens Institute of Technology, and in Taiwan under an AFIPS overseas teaching fellowship. Dr. Skip Ellis has worked as a researcher and developer at Bell Telephone Laboratories, IBM, Xerox, Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation, Los Alamos Scientific Labs, and Argonne National Lab. He has published several books, and over 100 technical papers and reports, lectured in more than a dozen countries, and was an invited speaker on object oriented systems at the most recent IFIP World Computer Conference. His interests include groupware, coordination theory; object oriented systems, CSCW, office systems, databases, distributed systems, software engineering, world-wide-web (internetworking), systems design and modeling, workflow systems, and humane interfaces to computers. Currently, Dr. Ellis is a Professor of Computer Science, and Director of the Collaboration Technology Research Group at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

ANNIE EASLEY

Annie Easley was born on April 23, 1933 in Birmingham, Alabama. Easley has worked for National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Lewis Research Center and its predecessor agency (NACA) in Cleveland, Ohio since 1955. She continued her education while working for the agency and in 1977, she obtained a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Cleveland State University. As part of a continuing education, Easley worked through specialization courses offered by NASA. Annie Easley developed and implemented computer code used in determining solar, wind, and energy projects for NASA. Her energy assignments have included studies to determine the life use of storage batteries, such as those used in electric utility vehicles. Her computer applications are used to identify energy conversion systems that offer the improvement over commercially available technologies.