Computer History Museum

Lary, Ellen oral history

<p>Ellen Lary&rsquo;s oral history traces a remarkable career path from science educator to senior technology executive at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Raised near Buffalo, New York, and initially trained as a chemistry teacher, Lary returned to academia in the 1970s to pursue advanced degrees in engineering, computer science, and operations research at Syracuse University while raising young children. Her doctoral work involved programming and performance analysis on the STARAN associative array processor, placing her at the forefront of early high-performance and database research.&nbsp;</p> <p>After work at Bell Labs, she joined DEC in Colorado Springs, where she helped build advanced database and distributed systems groups and played a key role in pioneering multimedia and AI-adjacent technologies, including the influential DIDDLY project. Lary later transitioned into storage systems leadership, ultimately becoming one of DEC&rsquo;s few female vice presidents, overseeing major StorageWorks initiatives and mentoring teams during a period of significant organizational and technological change.</p>

Item Details

Date
2018-05-02 (Made)
Type
Moving Image
Catalogue number
102738786
Organization
Computer History Museum (Publisher)
People
Ellen Lary (Interviewee)
Thomas Burniece (Interviewer)
Category
Oral History
Format
MOV
Credit line
Computer History Museum
Extent
02:26:40
Language
English
Acquisition number
X8614.2018
Archive collection
CHM Oral History Collection
Archive hierarchy
CHM Oral History Collection