10-08-2008

A Daughter of Pennsylvania

Jeannette M. Wing, the President’s Professor of Computer Science, was honored Wednesday, Oct. 8, by Gov. Ed Rendell and First Lady Judge Marjorie O. Rendell as one of seven Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania during a luncheon at the Governor’s Residence in Harrisburg.

"This year’s Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania have done extraordinary work in so many different capacities," Rendell said. "Their contributions to Pennsylvania and the nation have come at the executive level, in medicine, journalism, in academics, as mentors and as community leaders. I am grateful for the work that these women have done on our behalf to strengthen our state and the qualify of life for so many residents."   

Wing, now serving as assistant director for the National Science Foundation’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate, was cited for her work in trustworthy computing, formal methods, programming languages, concurrent and distributed systems and software engineering, as well as her vision to make "computational thinking" a common part of science and math education.

She was honored along with Meg Cheever, founding president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy; Catherine DeAngelis, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association; Philadelphia Inquirer foreign affairs columnist Trudy Rubin; Deborah M Fretz, president and CEO of Sunoco Logistics Partner L.P.; Stephanie Naidoff, founding president of Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts; and Susan Weiss Shoval, a Philadelphia insurance executive and philanthropist.

The commonwealth has honored women as Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania since 1949. To be selected, women must be nominated by organizations within the commonwealth for accomplishments of statewide or national importance. They receive medals and citations.

Byron Spice