Newswise — The ranks of bona fide international celebrities in technology are rather small, if by "bona fide" you mean people whose fame has something to do with actual technological acumen and achievement. But now let's draw up a list of all the female bona fide international tech celebrities: 1. Marissa Mayer End of list. Mayer was the first female engineer and the 20th person hired at Google. She was a major force behind the company's user interface. For 10 years she ran its core search business while the company methodically demolished such competitors as Alta Vista, Lycos, and Excite. Now, at age 37, she's in charge of one of Google's hottest bunch of technologies: local and local services. She oversees some 800 engineers and product managers who are refining and improving Google Maps, Google Places, and Google Earth, and also developing the technology behind advanced applications that may revolutionize the mobile Web as much as the search engine transformed the original one.

Mayer is also one of the world's more unusual pop stars, a brainy blonde paparazzi magnet that gossip site Gawker once referred to as "Google's star-dappled moon queen." She loves movies, she decorates her house lavishly for holidays, and though estimated to be worth several hundred million dollars, Mayer still comes off as the coed who blanched at the cost of a Stanford premed education. Even now, she thinks twice about taking a cab if her destination is within walking distance. A bundle of contradictions? Or a woman whose personality is a perfect match for the company she helped grow?