Grace Hopper, American Computer Scientist

Like many highly educated young American women during the 1930s, Grace Brewster Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) came from a well-established Anglo-Saxon family.

The Murray home at 316 West 95th Street in New York City, filled with books, provided an environment in which young Grace’s academic ambitions were supported and encourage. Grace matriculated at Vassar College in 1924 and pursued a graduate degree in mathematics and physics at Yale University.

Supported by a loving family Grace Murray Hopper completed her dissertation in 1934 and received her doctorate in mathematics from Yale.

When World War II started, Grace Hopper joined the United States Naval Reserves as a lieutenant, where she was assigned to the Bureau of Ordinance Computation Project at Harvard University.

She developed the concept of automatic programming with a compiling system using works instead of mathematical symbols. For this concept she helped develop the computer language called COBOL (common business-oriented language).
Grace Hopper, American Computer Scientist