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Birth
Born Grace Brewster Murray -
Graduation from Vassar College
In 1928, Grace Hopper graduated from Vassar College as a member of Phi Phi Betta Kapa with BA in Physics and Mathematics (Nowlan and Robert 143). -
Master's Completion at Yale University
In 1930, she completed her master's degree at Yale University. -
Career Beginnings
While completing her dissertation, she returned to Vassar in 1931 to teach mathematics and got promoted later in 1941 to associate professor (Nowlan and Robert 144). -
PhD Acheivement
She completed her dissertation “New Types of Irreducibility Criteria” in 1934 and graduated from Yale university with a PhD in mathematics. -
Introduction into the Naval Reserves
At the age of 34, Grace Hopper left academia and joined the United States Naval Reserves. She wanted to directly offer her service and support the war effort (Richardson and Debra 13). She was admitted to in the newly created Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service where she was awarded a reserve commission as a lieutenant junior grade and was posted to the duty of Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard University as a lieutenant junior grade (Bruderer and Herbert 76). -
Her Contributions at Harvard
At Harvard, she was working with Howard Aiken in Mark I computer programming and they later coauthored a book named Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (Nowlan and Robert 146). In a spell at Harvard, she made noticeable improvement to Mark II and Mark III computers (Richardson and Debra 15). -
Her contributions at Eckert Mauchly Computer Corporation
In 1949, Grace Hopper started working at the Eckert Mauchly Computer Corporation as a Senior Mathematician and joined the team that created UNIVersal Automatic Computer with a simple arithmetic and data transport operation designed for business applications (Bruderer and Herbert 80). Working with her team, Hopper advanced the binary code by developing the initial compiler the A-O that was able to translate Symbolic Mathematical Code into Machine Code (Nowlan and Robert 149). -
Cobol
While in this corporation she created B-O compiler; this later turned into one of her major contribution to computing (Bruderer and Herbert 82). The compiler B-O compiler allows programmers to convert English language into machine codes.
The development of machine-independent programming language gave rise to the formation of “Common Business Oriented Language (COBOL)”, which is a programming language that is considered to be high-level and is still in use today (Bruderer and Herbert 83). -
Flow-Matic Language
This development extended her earlier development of FLOW-MATIC language. She had a strong belief in developing programs that used English language rather than machine codes. -
First Retirement
In 1966, she retired from the naval reserve, but was recalled to duty in 1967 -
Her Return to the Naval Reserve
Hopper later served in the Navy Programming Language Group from 1967 - 1977 as a director in the department of Information System Planning and was promoted to captaincy (Bruderer and Herbert 84). -
Rear Admiral Hopper
In December 1983, she was promoted to the rank of commodore in a White House ceremony. The rank was merged with that of rear admiral two years later, so she became Rear Admiral Hopper (Maisel 1). -
National Medal of Techonology
In 1991, she received the National Medal of Technology for her contributions. -
Death
Grace Hopper died on New Year's Day in 1992 at the age of 85. -
Presidential Medal of Freedom
President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Hopper the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.
