Diana Merry

Diana Merry-Shapiro (née Mayhugh; born August 25, 1939)^[1] is an American computer programmer.

Diana Merry-Shapiro
Born	1939 (age 85–86) Iowa, USA
Nationality	American
Occupation	Computer programmer
Known for	1st overlapping display windows and BitBLT co-inventor

Merry-Shapiro was born in Iowa. She graduated from Valparaiso University in 1961.^[2]

In the early 1970s, Merry-Shapiro began working as a secretary for Xerox PARC. She shifted from working as a secretary to becoming a computer programmer with PARC's Learning Research Group.^[3] As one of the original developers of the Smalltalk programming language, she helped write the first system for overlapping display windows.^[4] Merry-Shapiro was also a co-inventor of the BitBLT routines for Smalltalk,^[5][6] subroutines for performing computer graphics operations efficiently.

After leaving PARC in 1986, Merry-Shapiro worked as a financial software developer. As of 2003, she was still using Smalltalk as an employee of Suite LLC, a financial consulting firm.^[7] Merry-Shapiro retired in 2014.

Personal life

Merry-Shapiro is a trans woman. She discussed her gender transition and experiences at the Casa Susanna resort in the 2022 documentary Casa Susanna.^[1]

Merry-Shapiro was previously married to a woman named Julie before her gender transition.^[1] In 1968, Merry-Shapiro married Don Merry; they later divorced. Merry-Shapiro met her current spouse, Carol Shapiro, in November 1986.^[2] They live in the New York metropolitan area.