Frances Spence (ne Bilas)

One of the original programmers for the ENIAC computer, Spence was born Frances Bilas in Philadelphia in 1922. She attended Temple University but then was awarded a scholarship to Chestnut Hill College, where she majored in mathematics with a minor in physics and graduated in 1942. While there, she met Kathleen McNulty, who also later became an ENIAC programmer.

Although one of the original programmers of the ENIAC, Spence's role, as well as those of the other women contributors, was downplayed, due to the stigma that women didn't like technology. McNulty and Spence were hired by the Moore School of Engineering to compute ballistics trajectories, and both were selected to become part of the first group of programmers for the ENIAC, which was designed to perform the same calculations.

In 1947, she married Homer Spence, an Army electrical engineer from the Aberdeen Proving Grounds who had been assigned to the ENIAC project and later became head of the Computer Research Branch. Shortly after that, Spence resigned to raise a family. In 1997, she was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame, along with the other original ENIAC programmers.