Wendy Carlos was born Walter Carlos in 1939, and after studying music and physics at Brown and Columbia, she worked on the development of the Moog synthesizer. Her 1968 album Switched-On Bach was a massive success that won three Grammys and allowed her to undergo gender reassignment surgery in 1972. She publicly revealed her identity as a woman and her new name in 1979, becoming one of the earliest celebrities to disclose their change of gender.