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Admiral Grace Hopper's Biography

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Admiral Grace Hopper

Admiral Grace Hopper was a computer scientist and the first woman Rear Admiral in the United States Navy. Hopper invented the first compiler for a computer programming language, tackled the original computer bug and helped program the 1944 Harvard Mark 1 computer. Her outspoken support of machine-independent programming languages led to the creation of COBOL, one of the very first high-level computer programming languages. Admiral Grace Hopper’s quote, “You manage things, you lead people,” still exists as a modern leadership mantra.

==Youth and Education==

Grace Brewster Murray was born on December 9, 1906, in New York City, New York, the oldest of three to parents Mary Campbell Van Horne and Walter Fletcher Murray.Williams, 2003 Her father and her mother’s father, John Van Horne, worked as insurance brokers. Her mother showed great interest in mathematics and often accompanied John Van Horne on surveying trips he did as a New York City senior civil engineer. Although society …show more content…

She joined Howard H. Aiken, the head of computer programming staff on the Mark I. They coauthored three papers on the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator known as Mark 1. She requested transfer to the regular navy, but they decided her due to her age at 38. She continued working at the Harvard Computational Lab until 1949. She turned down an off from Vassar for a full professorship to conduct research with the Harvard Navy contract.Williams, 2003 Before leaving Harvard, she authored a Manual of Operations for the Automatic Sequence-Controlled Calculator. The 500-page manual outlined the fundamental principles for operating computing machines. She also successfully described the first computer bug. Vincent Hopper, her husband, perished serving the U.S. military in 1945.National Women’s History Museum,

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