In 1969, the technology world was a very different place—to say the least. The first prototype of the Internet, the Department of Defense–funded Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), was barely a few years old. That year, the first humans to set foot on the moon did so with the technical assistance of the Apollo Guidance Computer, which famously had less processing power than a standard iPhone or Android device today. Also in 1969, Vassar launched its computer science program. Two years earlier, a mathematician named Winifred Asprey ’38 had brokered a partnership with IBM to bring the first mainframe computer to the then-all-women’s college, making it only the second higher-education institution in the country to acquire an IBM System/360 machine.
“She had this vision that colleges needed a computer, specifically liberal arts colleges, and I’m in awe of the obstacles that she faced to convince the prevailing wisdom of the time at Vassar that it was needed,” says Marc Smith, Associate Professor of Computer Science.
Asprey, who passed away in 2007, remains a legend at Vassar. In the 1940s, she had been one of only about 200 women to earn a PhD in mathematics in that decade. Returning to teach after graduation and advanced studies, she ultimately taught math and computer science at Vassar for 38 years and retired in 1982—the same year that the Commodore 64 personal computer was released; Adobe, Symantec, and Electronic Arts were founded; and Apple hit $1 billion in sales for the first time. Over the course of Asprey’s career at Vassar, computers had transformed the world.
That transformation didn’t just continue—it became even more rapid and groundbreaking. And much of the current generation of innovation is underpinned by a sector of the industry that many everyday technology users don’t think about: cloud computing, the storage and access of data and computer software over the Internet as opposed to on a physical hard drive that the individual user owns.
While “the cloud” already dominates much of how we access personal technology, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic brought it into our lives in new ways. From remote meetings and distance learning and virtual birthday parties over Zoom, to streaming entertainment on Netflix or Hulu to pass the time while under lockdown, the cloud became millions of Americans’ primary means of accessing the world around them.
And an impressive collection of Vassar alumnae/i, many of them veterans of the computer science program that Winifred Asprey founded, are at the forefront of these advancements in cloud technology. But they’re not just writing code. Armed with a premier liberal arts education, they’re helping to shape the ways that the interface between humans and machines will fundamentally change post-COVID.
Cloud technology powers everything from tiny startups being founded in dorm rooms to the biggest technology companies in the world. Companies of all sizes “build on top” of cloud providers. But cloud technology itself is dominated by only a few companies. They’re massive— and you’ve definitely heard of them—but you might not think of them for their cloud services.
“There are three major players in the pure cloud space—Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, in no particular order,” explains Peter Leonard ’97, Regional Head of Customer Engineering at Google. “Oracle, IBM, and a series of other companies that have a traditional infrastructure have meanwhile been making the shift over to cloud. It’s a very, very, very expensive business to be in, which I think is one of the large barriers to entry for anyone else coming into the space of providing that core infrastructure.”
“Cloud computing is a natural monopoly where there is a severe barrier to entry for new participants, especially at the scale to be truly cloud providers.”
Dashiell Flynn ’99
While that cost factor means that cloud computing isn’t the kind of space where a tiny startup can sneak in and disrupt the established order, there’s nevertheless plenty happening that’s shaking up the space.
“Where we stand today, cloud is still very much in its infancy,” Leonard says. “The interfaces for Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft’s Azure or Google Cloud Platform, or Oracle or IBM, are all slightly different, even though the core systems are effectively the same—virtual machines, storage, network capacity, and the like. I would expect that over the longer term we’ll start to see a little bit more consistency or some level of abstraction that will basically smooth out all of that so that companies can buy cloud infrastructure no differently than how they buy power, or sugar, or any other commodity. But I think that’s going to take time.”
That’s on the horizon, but right now, the biggest changes involve sheer volume. S&P Global Market Intelligence reported in June 2020 that, just three months into COVID, Zoom’s growth was already up 350 percent year-over-year. The Federal Communications Commission had to temporarily increase broadband capacities to account for the increase in demand.
“What I’ve seen with customers and clients is that they’re realizing just how much they need cloud,” says Nakiso Maodza ’97, most recently of Acceleration, a Wunderman Thompson company. “All of a sudden, it’s like, ‘Oh, wow, we’ve got to actually deal with the fact that everybody does have to stay home, and how ready are we? And how prepared are we in terms of services?’”
Even Zoom, the videoconferencing company that quickly became a pandemic mainstay, wasn’t quite ready for the onslaught of business. “I just look at how frequent and how numerous the updates were that Zoom had to make to its platform in the space of about six months,” Maodza says. “There were many issues that they just hadn’t bothered to think about because nobody was using this platform at the level that it’s being used now.”
Meanwhile, forthcoming advancements in broadband speed will make cloud services faster and able to handle bigger loads of data. Fifth-generation broadband technology, or 5G, is currently being deployed globally, promising a supercharged speed for mobile networks. That will likely lead to greater reliance on the cloud—and more demand.
“At a place like Google, where the codebase is so big, where you’re working with so many different people and so many different teams, you really can accelerate your career by being a good communicator.”
Allyson Pemberton ’15
“We’re opening up a world with just absolutely tremendous computing power at our fingertips,” Leonard says. “And it’s encouraging, but how companies are able to manage and control this is beyond the scope and capabilities of a lot of organizations. And more so, aside from management, they don’t necessarily have the talent to take advantage of all of this technology.”
Cloud computing is both complicated and ubiquitous, and that has real implications when regulators get involved. Dashiell Flynn ’99, who works as a Senior Business Development Manager in machine learning at AWS, highlights this as a growing issue.
“There’s more and more of a burden on governments to understand the industry in a much better way,” Flynn says. “It is a natural monopoly where there is a severe barrier to entry for new participants, especially at the scale to be truly cloud providers. And so if some of the recent congressional hearings scrutinizing tech companies have taught us anything, there is a lack of knowledge and understanding about these industries and these technologies.”
And that’s where a storytelling-driven liberal arts background, rooted in strong writing and communication skills, can make a real difference in a fast-moving sector of technology that touches nearly every aspect of our lives—even if we aren’t thinking about it.
As an undergraduate at Vassar, Allyson Pemberton ’15 studied in the same computer science program that Winifred Asprey founded half a century earlier. For three years, the school sponsored her attendance at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, one of the biggest conferences for women in technology—named after Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper ’28, computer science pioneer and a Vassar mathematics professor in addition to an alumna. Through this conference, Pemberton scored two internships as well as a connection to what ultimately became a job offer at Google, where she still works. She’s now living in London and working on the team for Google Play, the company’s app store.
Double majoring in computer science and math, Pemberton nevertheless says the liberal arts education she received at Vassar is invaluable on the job. “I’m grateful for my liberal arts degree for the communication skills I learned,” she says. “At a place like Google that’s so big, where the codebase is so big, where you’re working with so many different people and so many different teams all the time, you really can accelerate your career by being a good communicator.”
Dashiell Flynn concurs. “The combination of being able to write and put an argument together, put thoughts together cohesively, and being inquisitive about new things is so important,” he says. “And you have the opportunity to learn and grow in that at a place like Vassar. It’s a critical skill set and it’s very applicable no matter what you’re doing with your career.”
“Vassar teaches you to take on problems that are bigger than you. At Oracle, I’m trying to build out teams from scratch and deal with new models that have never existed.”
Josh Hammer ’03
“Vassar encouraged everyone to be really vocal,” says Manning Wu ’14, who works in Global Expansion at AWS. “Talking and communication is really a skill that people underestimate the importance of. The ability and the courage to voice your opinions is something that’s important to me and something I’ve learned from Vassar.”
“Vassar teaches you—I don’t know whether it’s the courses or just the culture there—to take on problems that are bigger than you,” Josh Hammer ’03 says. “Had I not gone to Vassar, I probably would not have been challenged like this. At Oracle, I’m trying to build out teams from scratch and deal with new models that have never existed. And I feel like that empowerment and encouragement to address big problems, start to tackle them, and maybe even achieve something is something that Vassar did. I mean, I watched us take on New York State during the dredging of the Hudson. We’re always willing to take on things that are bigger than us.”
So, how does a graduate (or soon-to-be graduate) from a liberal arts school like Vassar find their way into one of the deepest and most engineering-heavy sectors of the tech industry? Vassarians in cloud computing tend to be in agreement: Just go for it.
“In the end, it’s all about knowing the right people to refer you,” Manning Wu says. (And the Vassar alumnae/i network, clearly, has many.) “But if you apply, companies like Amazon and Google get back to you pretty fast on the recruiting timeline and when to expect an interview. In the financial services industry, you may never hear back, and you don’t know where your application really went.”
“You don’t have to be a computer science major,” Professor Marc Smith says. “It really just ends up being that you have to have an interest in the space. And it is a very large space.”
And as a complex, difficult-to-understand sector of the industry, cloud computing is ripe for bright new thinking. “If you’re interested in a particular industry, go be a trendsetter or frontrunner in that space,” Maodza says. “Change the conversation.”
Want to hear more? View a panel discussion with these alums.