Harold Pender

{{short description|American academic}}

File:ARL ENIAC 05.png officials - Pender is third from right]]

Harold Pender (13 January 1879, Tarboro, North Carolina – 6 Kennebunkport, Maine1959) was an American academic, author, and inventor.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wEI_AQAAMAAJ |title=New York Review of the Telegraph and Telephone and Electrical Journal |date=1914 |publisher=McGraw-Hill Publishing Company |pages=15 |language=en}} He was the first Dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering, a position he held from the founding of the School in 1923 until his retirement in 1949.{{Cite book |last=Thomas |first=George E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NVr_lTmT4p4C |title=University of Pennsylvania: An Architectural Tour |date=2002 |publisher=Princeton Architectural Press |isbn=978-1-56898-315-8 |pages=82 |language=en}} During his tenure, the Moore School built the ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, and began construction of its successor machine, the EDVAC. Pender also proposed the Moore School Lectures, the first course in computers, which the Moore School offered by invitation in the summer of 1946.

Pender was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1913 and the American Philosophical Society in 1917.{{Cite web |date=2023-02-09 |title=Harold Pender |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/harold-pender |access-date=2023-10-19 |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Harold+Pender&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2023-10-19 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}

The Harold Pender Award is named after him.{{Cite web |title=The Harold Pender Award |url=http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/Awards/Pender.html |access-date=2023-02-13 |website=ai.eecs.umich.edu}}

He and his wife Ailsa had one son, bridge player and figure skater Peter Pender.{{Cite news |date=1959-09-07 |title=HAROLD PENDER, 80, TAUGHT ENGINEERING |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1959/09/07/archives/harold-pender-80-taught-engineering.html |access-date=2023-02-13 |issn=0362-4331}}{{Cite news |date=1990-11-21 |title=Peter A. Pender, 54, Leading Bridge Player |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/21/obituaries/peter-a-pender-54-leading-bridge-player.html |access-date=2023-02-13 |issn=0362-4331}}