Karen Spärck Jones

Karen Ida Boalth Spärck Jones was a self-taught programmer and a pioneering British computer scientist responsible for the concept of inverse document frequency (IDF), a technology that underlies most modern search engines. She was an advocate for women in computer science, her slogan being, "Computing is too important to be left to men." In 2019, The New York Times published her belated obituary in its series Overlooked, calling her "a pioneer of computer science for work combining statistics and linguistics, and an advocate for women in the field." From 2008, to recognize her achievements in the fields of information retrieval (IR) and natural language processing (NLP), the Karen Spärck Jones Award is awarded to a new recipient with outstanding research in one or both of her fields.

26 August 1935

Born on the same birth date (26 August 1935): Geraldine Ferraro

Born on the same birth day (26 August): Alan Parker (musician) • Ashford & Simpson • Benedict Anderson • Bill Whitaker (journalist) • Brant Parker • Chow Kwai Lam • Dori Caymmi • Eric Davies • Guillaume Apollinaire • Hellmuth Walter • Herbert Booth • James Franck • James Harden • Jimmy Rushing • Judith Rees • Katherine Johnson • Kotoshōhō Yoshinari • Luis Salvadores • Peggy Guggenheim • Pyotr Todorovsky • Shirley Manson • Yun Po-sun

Born in the same month (August 1935): Bobby Richardson • Donald P. Bellisario • Georgy Shonin • Geraldine Ferraro • Hans-Walter Eigenbrodt • Hugo Brandt Corstius • Ian Stewart, Baron Stewartby • John Cazale • John Laws • John Phillips (musician) • Michael Ballhaus