K-State computer technology pioneer Elizabeth Unger to speak at Michigan State about her influence on computing

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Source: Elizabeth Unger, 785-532-6520, beth@k-state.edu
News release prepared by: Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, 785-532-6415, ebarcomb@k-state.edu

Thursday, September 28, 2006

K-STATE COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY PIONEER ELIZABETH UNGER TO SPEAK AT MICHIGAN STATE ABOUT HER INFLUENCE ON COMPUTING

MANHATTAN -- A distinguished engineer, mathematician and computer scientist at Kansas State University is speaking at her alma mater about one of the many ways she's working to keep K-State on the leading edge of technology.

Elizabeth Unger, vice provost for academic services and technology and dean of continuing education at K-State, has been invited to speak at a celebration of 50 years of computing at Michigan State University, where she earned a master's degree in mathematics, a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and was named a distinguished alumna for her contributions to computing and engineering.

Unger will join six other computing pioneers from Michigan State for a panel discussion Friday, Sept. 29, and she also will present a distinguished lecture about the research commons she's forming at K-State.

Before pioneering computing at K-State, Unger helped develop computing at Michigan State, which built its first computer shortly before she became a student there. Unger said the computer was housed in a room about 20-feet-by-40-feet and was programmed using physical switches and paper tape -- and later with Hollerith cards.

"The original MISTIC had 1,024 storage or memory locations," she said. "Compare that size to a common student machine today with 512,000 bytes to one gigabyte of memory."

Unger's nine-year association with Michigan State's computing laboratory saw the MISTIC expanded with more memory added and the design and implementation of the Merit network, the first nonmilitary computing network in the United States. It is still being used today. Unger's influence on the computing field has continued for the 40 years she's been at K-State, which under her leadership has been recognized as one of the most "wired" universities in the nation by Yahoo! Magazine.

"I believe this honor at Michigan State deserves our recognition of her accomplishments here," said Rebecca Gould, director of K-State's Information Technology Assistance Center.

Unger joined K-State in 1966 as associate director of the computing center and instructor of mathematics. Shortly after that, K-State developed a computer science program, incubating it in the statistics department. Unger was one of the first four instructors in the discipline. Computer science eventually became its own department in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Unger was named full professor of computer science in 1982. She earned her doctorate in computer science from the University of Kansas in 1978.

An early leader in computer science, Unger reaches out to other women in engineering, math and science by helping lead the National Science Foundation ADVANCE Institutional Transformation program at K-State, which aims to increase the participation and advancement of women who are faculty in those disciplines. While at Michigan State, Unger will visit with female students and faculty to discuss the success of K-State's ADVANCE grant.

As part of the celebration at Michigan State, Unger also will present "University Research Commons: Fostering Interdisciplinary Research." Under Unger's leadership, this semester K-State is introducing a humanities commons, an experimental high-tech facility designed to bring students and faculty from various humanities disciplines together through technology in a facility supported by informational technology and application experts. A commons centered on disciplines that use geospatial information systems also has been formed and will move into a permanent location in the future.

"The concept is of a place for researchers from all disciplines to gather to promote the sharing of ideas and interdisciplinary research efforts," Unger said. "Success in that sense can already be seen in the form of these new commons."

At K-State, Unger has overseen the creation of more than 40 high-tech classrooms; developed K-State Online, the university's learning management system, and Axio, the backend engine that supports it and other learning management systems; visited China and Afghanistan to help bring a K-State education to people around the world through distance education; and created the Information Technology Assistance Center. Unger also is working on Scholars Desk, which will provide tools for collaborative grant proposal preparation, as well as collaborative scholarly and research efforts including illustrations, graphs, video and audio media.