December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992

Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper was an American computer scientist and United States Navy officer whose pioneering work helped lay the foundations of modern computing. She was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I, developed one of the earliest compilers, and played a major role in creating the business programming language COBOL. Admired for her intelligence and energy, she became widely known as “Amazing Grace.”

Grace Brewster Murray earned her PhD in Mathematics from Yale University at a time when almost no women pursued advanced scientific degrees. She became an associate professor at Vassar College before joining the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1943. Assigned to the Bureau of Ordnance Computation Project at Harvard, she learned to program the Mark I and used it to calculate critical wartime firing tables.

Early programming involved translating mathematical formulas into step‑by‑step instructions and encoding them in punched paper tape the computer could read. Although the work was slow and meticulous, the Mark I could repeat calculations far faster than any human, transforming military computation. In 1946, Hopper published A Manual of Operations for the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, one of the first written guides to programming.

Hopper continued working on the Mark II and Mark III computers and became determined to make computing more accessible. She envisioned programming languages written in plain English rather than machine code, even when colleagues insisted this was impossible. In 1949 she joined the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation and worked on the UNIVAC I, the first commercially available electronic computer.

There, she created the A‑0 compiler (1952), which allowed computers to call automatic subroutines - an extraordinary conceptual leap. Next came FLOW‑MATIC, a language for business users that directly inspired COBOL, which she later helped standardise for government and industry. Hopper became known as the “Grandmother of COBOL” for this work.

Hopper’s leadership style was legendary. She hired many women as programmers and valued their persistence and attention to detail. Promoted to commander in 1966, she was briefly required to retire - but the Navy quickly brought her back, recognising her unmatched expertise. She later oversaw the unification of different COBOL dialects while working in an office decorated with a backwards‑running clock and a pirate flag, reminders to challenge assumptions and think creatively.

In 1985 President Ronald Reagan promoted her to Rear Admiral, one of the Navy’s highest ranks. At the time of her second retirement in 1986, she was the oldest active‑duty officer in the U.S. military.

After leaving the Navy, Hopper became a senior consultant at Digital Equipment Corporation. In 1991, she received the National Medal of Technology, becoming the first individual ever honoured with the award. Grace Hopper remains one of computing’s most influential trailblazers, celebrated for her brilliance, humour, and unwavering drive to make computers usable for everyone.