Women in Science

Grace Murray Hopper

Computer Pioneer & Mathematician

A Foremother of the information age, Grade Hopper (1906-1992) was instrumental in creating and standardizing many of its raw materials—most notably COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language), the business programming language of choice from the earliest computers into the age of the microchip. Hopper was a professor of mathematics at Vassar when the navy recruited her in 1943 to work on the first computer in the United States, the Mark I, at Harvard. There shge built the first compiler to translate mathematical notation into machine code. The later development of COBOL arose from her realization that most people communicate better with prose than with mathematical symbols—and that future computer use would not be limited to science. hopper directed data processing development at Univac for many years before being called back into service by the navy, at age sixty-one, to standardize its computer programs and languages.

Be sure to read about how other female, African-American and other scientists helped shape our history and make our world what it is today.

Information Source: Publication Department of the Library of Congress. Photograph courtesy New York World-Telegram and Sun Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.