Xia Peisu or Pei-su Hsia (; 28 July 1923 – 27 August 2014) was a Chinese computer scientist and educator known for her pioneering research in computer science and technology. The leading developer of Model 107, the nation's first domestically designed general-purpose electronic computer, she has been called the "Mother of Computer Science in China". She and her husband Yang Liming were both elected academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1991. In 2010, she was honoured with the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award from the China Computer Federation. In 2015, the China Computer Federation in memory of academician Xia, the predecessor of computer science in China, awards the Xie-Piesu Award annually to female scientists and engineers recognised for their "outstanding contributions and achievements in the computer science, engineering, education and industry." Early life and education Xia was born on 28 July 1923 in Chongqing, Sichuan, to a literary family. Her grandfather, Xia Fengxun (夏风薰), who had passed the imperial examination for the xiucai degree during the late Qing dynasty, spent forty years as a teacher. Her father, Xia Hongru (夏鸿儒), who had passed the provincial imperial examination for the juren degree, ran a school in Jiangjin County, Chongqing. Her mother, Huang Xiaoyong (黄孝永), was a teacher at the Jiangjin Girls' Middle School and headmistress of Jiangjin Girls' Primary School. Under the private tutelage of her family, Xia built a solid foundation in ancient Chinese prose and mathematics at a young age. At fourteen years old, Xia was accepted into Nanyu Secondary School (now Chongqing Nankai Secondary School), where she consistently placed at the top of her class and excelled in mathematics. In 1939, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Xia was forced to transfer to the National No. Nine Middle School in Jiangjin County. She graduated high school in 1940 at the top of her class and began her undergraduate degree in electrical engineering at the National Central University the same year. After attaining her bachelor's degree, Xia pursued postgraduate studies at the Telecommunications Research Institute of National Chiao Tung University (Chongqing) from 1945 to 1947. In 1947, Xia began a PhD in electrical engineering at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, where she earned her doctorate with a thesis entitled "On Parametric Oscillations in Electronic Circuits. (II) A Graphical Analysis for Non-Linear Systems" in 1950. Career Two years after the founding of the People's Republic of China,