Grace Murray Hopper

Grace Murray Hopper was one of the greatest, yet least known, pioneers in the field of computer programming. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar in 1928 with a degree in mathematics and physics, then received masters degrees in math and physics in 1930, and a Ph.D. in math in 1934 from Yale. For the next ten years she taught math at Vassar.

In 1943 she joined the U.S. Naval Reserve and because of her mathematics background, was assigned to work on the Mark I calculator at Harvard University. It was while she was working on later models, the Mark II and Mark III, that she found a moth short-circuiting the machine, and the term,"computer bug", was born. The Mark II calculator is on display today at the Harvard Law School.

She briefly left active Navy duty, but remained in the Reserves, and went to work for Remington-Rand, where she worked on the original UNIVAC computer, which was as large as a room. She returned to active duty in the Naval Reserves and helped to develop the computer programming languages, COBOL and FORTRAN, which became the standard for computer vendors in the 1970's.

In spite of her illustrious career, she was relatively unknown until March, 1983 when she appeared on "60 Minutes". In 1985 she was promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral, and she retired from the Navy in 1986. She died in 1992 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. In 1996 the Navy launched the U.S.S. Hopper, one of the few Navy ships named after a woman. It shares her nickname, Amazing Grace.