In 1985, Mary Ann Buckles released her dissertation, "Interactive Fiction: The Computer Storygame Adventure", receiving her Ph.D. from UCSD. She fought for it the whole way, saying it was really important, that these games would change our relationship to computers. 
Her dissertation board had members dead set against this frivolous subject. The experience left her exhausted, and she wrote one more article about adventure games before becoming a massage therapist. Many, many game dissertations now quote her work, a major pioneering effort.
Her dissertation is at the Internet Archive, readable, at archive.org/details/maryan…
As I have on many other occasions, I'm asking for Mary Ann Buckles to receive a Pioneer Award from @Official_GDC as well as honorary awards from any Game Studies or Game Design labs that all benefited from her early effort.
nytimes.com/2004/05/06/tec…
nytimes.com/2004/05/06/tec…
I interviewed Mary Ann in November of 2007. She asked me, at the time, if this was even worth doing. She had been in communication with soon-to-be Dr. Jeremy Douglass, who got a text adventure doctorate in 2008. She handed me her robes to give to him.
archive.org/details/getlam…
archive.org/details/getlam…
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