Grace Hopper

Grace Hopper was born in 1906 in NYC. She graduated from Vassar College with degrees in mathematics and physics and eventually gained a master's degree in mathematics from Yale. Grace Hopper joined the U.S. Women's Naval Reserve during WWII. Once she received a commission, she was assigned to a computation project at Harvard, where she worked on an electromechanical computer. Hopper worked on many calculations for various things during the war. In 1946, she left active duty in the Navy but continued to work with computers for three more years.

After those three years, Hopper joined the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, where she developed the first compiler. This allowed mathematical code to be translated into code the machine could interpret. After that, she worked on creating a coding language that used words. Hopper wanted coding to be more widely used by people, including those who did not have mathematics degrees. This led to her working on a coding language, called COBOL, that would allow more businesses to utilize coding. In 1966, much to Hopper's disappointment, she was forced to retire from the Navy reserve. She won countless awards and was the first woman to individually win the National Medal of Technology.