38 Facts About Grace Hopper

Grace Brewster Hopper was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral.

Grace Hopper attempted to enlist in the Navy during World War II but was rejected because she was 34 years old.

Grace Hopper instead joined the Navy Reserves, leaving her position at Vassar.

Grace Hopper believed that programming should be simplified with an English based computer programming language.

Grace Hopper's compiler converted English terms into machine code understood by computers.

Grace Hopper retired from the Navy in 1986 and found work as a consultant for the Digital Equipment Corporation, sharing her computing experiences.

Grace Hopper was very curious as a child; this was a lifelong trait.

Grace Hopper was initially rejected for early admission to Vassar College at age 16, but she was admitted the following year.

Grace Hopper graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar in 1928 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics and earned her master's degree at Yale University in 1930.

In 1930, Grace Murray married New York University professor Vincent Foster Hopper ; they divorced in 1945.

Grace Hopper began teaching mathematics at Vassar in 1931, and was promoted to associate professor in 1941.

Grace Hopper tried to enlist in the Navy early in World War II, however she was turned down.

Grace Hopper was denied on the basis that her job as a mathematician and mathematics professor at Vassar College was valuable to the war effort.

Grace Hopper had to get an exemption to enlist; she was 15 pounds below the Navy minimum weight of 120 pounds.

Grace Hopper graduated first in her class in 1944, and was assigned to the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard University as a lieutenant, junior grade.

Grace Hopper served on the Mark I computer programming staff headed by Howard H Aiken.

Grace Hopper remained at the Harvard Computation Lab until 1949, turning down a full professorship at Vassar in favor of working as a research fellow under a Navy contract at Harvard.

In 1954 Grace Hopper was named the company's first director of automatic programming.

Grace Hopper's department released some of the first compiler-based programming languages, including MATH-MATIC and FLOW-MATIC.

Grace Hopper served as a technical consultant to the committee, and many of her former employees served on the short-term committee that defined the new language COBOL.

From 1967 to 1977, Grace Hopper served as the director of the Navy Programming Languages Group in the Navy's Office of Information Systems Planning and was promoted to the rank of captain in 1973.

Grace Hopper developed validation software for COBOL and its compiler as part of a COBOL standardization program for the entire Navy.

Grace Hopper developed the implementation of standards for testing computer systems and components, most significantly for early programming languages such as FORTRAN and COBOL.

Grace Hopper was recalled to active duty in August 1967 for a six-month period that turned into an indefinite assignment.

Grace Hopper again retired in 1971 but was again asked to return to active duty in 1972.

Grace Hopper was promoted to captain in 1973 by Admiral Elmo R Zumwalt Jr.

Grace Hopper remained on active duty for several years beyond mandatory retirement by special approval of Congress.

Effective November 8,1985, the rank of commodore was renamed rear admiral and Grace Hopper became one of the Navy's few female admirals.

Admiral Grace Hopper was the first ever person to be profiled twice on 60 Minutes, first in March 1983, and the second on 24-August-1986.

Grace Hopper was initially offered a position by Rita Yavinsky, but she insisted on going through the typical formal interview process.

Grace Hopper then proposed in jest that she would be willing to accept a position which made her available on alternating Thursdays, exhibited at their museum of computing as a pioneer, in exchange for a generous salary and unlimited expense account.

Grace Hopper retained that position until her death at age 85 in 1992.

Grace Hopper lectured widely about the early days of computing, her career, and on efforts that computer vendors could take to make life easier for their users.

Grace Hopper visited most of Digital's engineering facilities, where she generally received a standing ovation at the conclusion of her remarks.

In 2016 Grace Hopper received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in recognition of her remarkable contributions to the field of computer science.

On New Year's Day 1992, Grace Hopper died in her sleep of natural causes at her home in Arlington County, Virginia; she was 85 years of age.

Grace Hopper was interred with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.

Grace Hopper's legacy was an inspiring factor in the creation of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.