Lynn Conway retired and was named professor emerita of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan.
On September 1, 1998, Lynn Conway retired from active teaching and was named professor emerita of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan, formally recognizing her sustained contributions to the field and to the university's engineering program.
Though retired from regular teaching duties, Conway remained deeply active in professional and advocacy circles. Just a year later, in 1999, she made the decision to publicly reveal her earlier gender transition and her true role in pioneering superscalar computer architecture at IBM, a disclosure that had enormous impact both in the history of computing and in transgender visibility.
Her emerita status gave her continued affiliation with the university and access to its resources, which she used to build one of the internet's most comprehensive and widely cited personal resource websites for transgender individuals, particularly those considering or undergoing gender-affirming surgery, at a time when reliable information was scarce.
This period marked her transition from an active academic career into a role as a public intellectual, historian of her own field, and outspoken advocate—one whose influence would only grow in the years following her formal retirement from teaching.