Grace
Murray Hopper
was born in New York City on December 9, 1906. She
was a computer scientist who pioneered the use of compilers in the
early 1950s. Some of her work was concerned with the development of
compilers, which are computer programs that translate computer
languages used by programmers into a form accessible to computers.
During her lifetime, Grace Hopper contributed to the development of COBOL, a computer language widely used in business. She received a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale University and honed her skills developing computation methods for the U.S. Navy during World War II. After World War II she joined the U.S. Naval Reserves and worked on the development of the UNIVAC computer project for use in the private sector.
Grace Murray Hopper retired from the U.S. Navy in 1986 as a rear admiral. She died on January 1, 1993.
References
Alic, M. (1986). Hypatia's Heritage: A History of Women in Science from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century. London: Women's Press Ltd.
Daintith, J., Mitchell, S., & Tootill, E. (1981). A Biographical Encyclopedia of Scientists. New York: Facts on File.
Kass-Simon, G., & Farnes, P. (1990). Women of Science: Righting the Record. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.