Hopper, Grace Murray

(born Dec. 9, 1906, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Jan. 1, 1992, Arlington, Va.) U.S. mathematician and rear admiral. She received a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1934 and taught at Vassar College in 1931–44. As a U.S. Navy officer (1943–86), she worked on Harvard's Mark I (1944) and Mark II (1945) computers, and in 1949 she helped design an improved compiler for translating a programmer's instructions into computer codes. She helped devise UNIVAC I, the first U.S. commercial electronic computer (1951), and wrote naval applications for COBOL. She received the National Medal of Technology in 1991.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica