Why do we love Grace?

Often called the mother of the computer, Grace Murray Hopper was an inquisitive child who loved tinkering with gadgets and figuring out how they worked. She shared a love of math with her mother and was inspired by her father, a double amputee, to never give up. Grace's parents encouraged her to pursue higher education and to avoid the limitations often placed on women of the time. At the age of 16, Grace applied to Vassar College, but had to wait a year when she fell short in the Latin requirement. Graduating Phi Beta Kappa with a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and Physics, Grace became the first woman to earn a Master's degree in Mathematics from Yale University in 1930. The following year she was hired as a math professor at Vassar where she taught until she joined the Naval Reserves in 1943. During her time with the Navy, she worked on computer systems programming them to calculate aiming angles of Naval guns. She is also credited with coining the term "bug" as it relates to computers, while there is some question as to whether she was the first to use the term, she did find the moth that had temporarily shut down a computer, coining the term. Grace retired from the Navy and joined the private sector. There she worked on business programs for automating payroll and billing. Recalled to active duty to help the Navy develop a payroll plan, she helped standardize high-level Naval computer languages and COBOL.

In 1983, she was promoted to the rank of Commodore by special presidential appointmentby presidential appointment. Two years later, she became the first woman to achieve the rank of Rear Admiral. At the age of eighty, she was the oldest active-duty officer in the Navy. When Grace retired from the Navy for good in 1986, the ceremony was held aboard the USS Constitution. Upon her death in 1992, she was interred with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. The Navy further honored her memory by commissioning a ship, the USS Hopper, in her honor. She was a pioneer in computing who would find it fitting that the DOLs honor her contributions in this online forum.

Biography:

Born - December 9, 1906
New York, New York
Died - January 1, 1992
Arlington, Virginia

Achievements:

• Graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar in 1928, with a Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics and Physics
• Received her Master's Degree in Mathematics from Yale University in 1930
• Taught mathematics at Vassar, 1931-1943
• Earned a Ph.D. from Yale in 1934
• Joined the U.S. Naval Reserve in December 1943
• Returned to inactive duty, 1946
• In 1969, the Data Processing Management Association awarded her the first Computer Science Man-of-the-Year Award
• Recalled to active duty, 1967
• Retired from the Navy, 1971
• Asked to come out of retirement by the Navy, 1972
• Received the Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society in 1973 (the first American and first woman to recieve the award)
• In 1983, promoted to the rank of Commodore by special presidential appointment
• In 1985, becomes the first women promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral
• In 1986, retires from the Navy with a ceremony held in Boston aboard the USS Constitution
• Awarded the Defense Distinguished Service Medal in 1986, the Department of Defense's highest award
• Awarded the National Medal of Technology the nation's highest honor in engineering and technology in September 1991
• Buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery, 1992
• The USS Hopper, The Amazing Grace, an AEGIS guided missile destroyer, is commissioned in San Francisco on September 6, 1997