People like Ellen Ullman

Ellen Ullman is an American computer programmer and author. She has written books, articles, and essays that analyze the human side of the world of computer programming.

She has owned a consulting firm and worked as technology commentator for NPR's All Things Considered. Her breakthrough book was non-fiction: Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its Discontents.

Ullman's adoptive father's family included computer scientists and mathematicians who had a major impact on her decision to pursue software engineering, a field for which she did "not have native talent." Ullman earned a B.A. in English at Cornell University in the early 1970s. She began working professionally in 1978 as a programmer of electronic data interchange applications and graphical user interfaces.