Mary D'Imperio

Mary D'Imperio
Born(1930-01-13)January 13, 1930
DiedMay 28, 2020(2020-05-28) (aged 90)
Alma mater
Known forcryptographer and computer programmer

Mary D'Imperio (January 13, 1930, in Germantown, Pennsylvania – May 28, 2020, in Springfield, Virginia)[1] was an American cryptographer.

Biography

Mary D'Imperio was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, January 13, 1930. Her father was the Philadelphia sculptor, Dominic D'Imperio.[2]

D'Imperio received degrees in comparative philology and classics from Radcliffe College from which she graduated magna cum laude,[3] and structural linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania. She was elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa at Radcliffe in 1950.[4]

Between 1960 and 1962, D'Imperio created the TEMAC (Text Macro Compiler) language for processing text.[5] From 1987 to 2006, she was a frequent contributor to North American Breeding Bird Survey reports.[6]

She was introduced to the problem of the Voynich Manuscript by John Tiltman in 1975. She wrote several books and journal articles about the manuscript. These include The Voynich Manuscript: An Elegant Enigma, The Voynich Manuscript: A Scholarly Mystery, and An Application of Cluster Analysis and Multiple Scaling to the Question of "Hands" and "Languages" in the Voynich Manuscript.

According to a 1976 introduction by Vera Filby: "Her career has been with the government since 1951. She was a linguist and cryptanalyst, but thought of herself mainly as a computer programmer".[7]

She died May 28, 2020, in Springfield, Virginia.

Selected works

  • D'Imperio, Mary E. (1951). A phonematic analysis of the Etruscan mummy-wrapping text (A.B., Honors in Comparative Philology). Radcliffe College.
  • D'Imperio, Mary Evelyn (1955). A survey of decipherment (M.A. in Linguistics). Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania.
  • D'Imperio, Mary E. (1956). Tamil Grammar Notes. Washington, D.C.: Foreign Service Institute, Department of State.
  • D'Imperio, M. E. (1965). "TEMAC (Text Macro Compiler): A Machine Language for Processing Text". NSA Technical Journal. X (3).
  • D'Imperio, M. E. (1969). "Data Structures and their representation in storage". Annual Review in Automatic Programming. 5: 1–75. doi:10.1016/0066-4138(69)90036-6.
  • D'Imperio, M. E. (1969). "Information structures: Tools in problem solving". ACM SIGMOD Record. 1 (2): 25–51. doi:10.1145/983038.983042. S2CID 19133092.
  • D'Imperio, Mary (1972). "The Open Door: Camino" (PDF). Dragon Seeds. 1 (2). National Security Agency: 15–18 (PDF pages 59–62). Retrieved 7 August 2023.
  • D'Imperio, M. E. (1976). New research on the Voynich manuscript : proceedings of a seminar 30 November 1976 (PDF).
  • D'Imperio, M. E. (1977–1978). "The Voynich Manuscript: A Scholarly Mystery". Manuscripts. OCLC 28211922.
  • D'Imperio, M. E. (1978). The Voynich Manuscript: An Elegant Enigma (PDF). Fort George G. Meade, MD: National Security Agency/Central Security Service. OCLC 50929259. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-08-20. Retrieved 2018-03-22.
  • D'Imperio, Mary E. (1978). "An Application of Cluster Analysis and Multiple Scaling to the Question of "Hands" and "Languages" in the Voynich Manuscript" (PDF). NSA Technical Journal. XXIII (3).
  • D'Imperio, M. E. (1978). "The Joys of Unix" (PDF). Cryptolog. 42: 15–18.
  • D'Imperio, Mary E. (1979). "An Application of PTAH to the Voynich Manuscript" (PDF). NSA Technical Journal. XXIV (2).

"List of articles by Mary D'Imperio in Cryptolog (Name redacted in the original; references begin with Feb 75 CAMINO News)" (PDF). National Security Agency. Retrieved 7 August 2023.


References

  1. ^ Pelling, Nick. "Sad News: Mary D'imperio Has Just Died". Cipher Mysteries. Retrieved 11 June 2020.
  2. ^ "Dominic D'Imperio". Philadelphia Inquirer. 1965-08-01. Retrieved 2019-04-03.
  3. ^ "Radcliffe will confer degrees on 226 today". Boston Globe. 1951-06-20. Retrieved 2019-04-03.
  4. ^ "Phi Beta Kappa Elects 6 Juniors at Radcliffe". Boston Globe. 1950-03-17. Retrieved 2019-04-03.
  5. ^ An evaluation of the utility and cost of computerized library catalogs. Final Report. [1]
  6. ^ Breeding bird census
  7. ^ "New Research on the Voynich Manuscript - Proceedings of a Seminar," 30 November 1976, Washington, DC. Transcribed by M. E. D'Imperio.