Computing Atlas

How Computing Was Built
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Pioneer

Joana Lopes Alves

Software And Its Engineering

Joana Lopes Alves (October 11, 1938 to February 5, 2026) was a Portuguese systems engineer and anti-fascist activist, born in Lourenço Marques, now Maputo, in what was then Portuguese Mozambique. After teaching logic and philosophy at the University of Lisbon's Faculty of Arts from 1965 to 1971, she moved into computer programming and systems engineering, working as a systems engineer for IBM in Portugal and Belgium and becoming the first woman to join the executive board of IBM's Portuguese operation. Before her move into computing she had been a founding member of the Pragma Cooperative in 1964, an organization closed by the secret police PIDE in 1967, and a participant in Catholic opposition to Portugal's colonial wars.

Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.