Can you name any important figures in computer science? Some figures you might mention are Alan Turing or Steve Jobs. How about any important figures in computer science that are women? It is important to acknowledge important figures in computer science that are not just men. An important woman many seem to forget about is Grace Hopper. She's one of the important women behind the world of computer science.
Grace Brewster Murrary Hopper was born on December 9, 1906 in New York City, New York to Walter Murray and Mary Campbell Van Horne. In 1928, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar College with degrees in mathematics and physics. After graduating from Vassar College, she would then earn her master's degree in mathematics from Yale University. While pursuing her doctorate, she was a Mathematics professor at Vassar. During her one-year break from Vassar, she would also study with Richard Courant at New York University. She earned her Ph.D. in 1934 from Yale University in mathematics.
After Pearl Harbor was bombed, Hopper had tried to join the war effort but was rejected due to her age and physicality. She would continue to persist in joining the war effort and would eventually join the U.S. Naval Reserve (Women's Reserve). She would then undergo intensive training at Midshipmen's School for Women at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts in December 1943. After she had received the rank of lieutenant junior grade, she was assigned to join the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard University. There, she would join a team working on the MARK I (the first electromechanical computer in the United States). Under Howard Aiken, Grace Hopper and her team would work on top-secret computations to help the war effort such as computing rocket trajectories, calibrating minesweepers,etc. She also wrote the 561- page manual for MARK I. Once the war had ended, she turned down a full professorship at Vassar to continue working on computers. In 1946, she left active service in the navy but remained a naval reservist. She worked on MARK II and MARK III for the navy until 1949. After three years, she would leave Harvard because there were no permanent positions for women at that time.
Hopper would then join the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation in Philadelphia as a senior mathematician in 1949. Hopper would work on the UNIVAC 1 and II (the first electric commercial computers). In 1952, she would develop the first compiler (A-0), which translated mathematical code into machine-readable code. In 1956, she and her team ran FLOW-MATIC which used regular English words and was designed for data processing purposes. In 1959, she attended CODASYL (Conference on Data System Languages). Their goal was to invent a common business language that could be used across industries and sectors. The product was the language called COBOL. By the 1970s, COBOL was the most extensively used computer language in the world.
In 1966, she would retire from the Navy as a commander due to her age but was called back for active service to help standardize the Navy's computer languages and programs. She retired from a division in the Navy called UNIVAC in 1971 and she would retire from the Navy as a rear admiral at the age of 79 years old. During her service she was rewarded with many accolades and titles. She was awarded the Yale's Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal in 1972 and in 1973, she became the first woman and the first American to become a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society. In 1991, she was awarded the National Medal of Technology. She would unfortunately pass away in 1992 but was buried with full military honors. After her death, the Navy named one of their military destroyers called the USS Hopper in honor of her in 1996. In 2016, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously.
Grace Hopper was an amazing and intelligent woman. Without her contributions to technology, we wouldn't have the knowledge and inventions in technology and computer science today!
