Sylvia B. Wilbur (born 1938) was a British computer scientist who helped develop the ARPANET, was one of the first to exchange email in Britain, and became a leading researcher on computer-supported cooperative work.
[3] While completing her degree Wilbur moved from being a typist at the University of East London to being a computer operator, and began learning a second programming language, COBOL.
Kirstein was in charge of Britain's part of the ARPANET project, and Wilbur's work for him involved programming a PDP-9 computer used as the local node for the network.
Her husband was also affiliated with the same department at University College London, and had been supervising some of her work there, so to preserve her independence she left her position.
Five years later, in approximately 1983, she moved again to Queen Mary College, in part because of the lack of time to work on research in East London.