About Leonard Adleman: He was born on December 31, 1945. He grew up in San Fransisco and attended University of California, Berkley. He became a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1966.
What they did: He was one of the creators of RSA which is still one of the two most popular public key encryption algorithms. It allows you to secure messages before they are sent, and is used for E-mails and other transactions over the internet. It is found in a wide variety of web browsers, VPN's, and E-mails, since it is very hard to crack.
About Elizabeth Feinler: She was born on March 2nd, 1931, and is an American Information Scientist. She grew up in Wheeling, West Virginia. She also got a degree at West Liberty State College.
What they did: She was known for running rhe original ARPANET NIC at SRI. ARPANET was one of the first prototypes of the internet and it was first run on an IBM computer. After the introduction of TCP/IP, ARPANET quickly grew to become an interconnected network of networks, or internet.
About Katherine Johnson: She was born on August 26, 1918 and died on Feburary 24, 2020. She started high school when she was only 10, started college at 15, and graduated at 18. The college she attended was West Virginia State College. She also worked with NASA for 33 years after college.
What they did: She was one of the mathematicians that helped calculate the orbital mechanics that were critical to the success of some of the first US spaceflights. She worked at NASA and one of the biggest projects she worked on was the mission to send someone to the moon.
