At the age of seven, she was already taking apart alarm clocks, determined to figure out how they worked. Often deemed “The Queen of Code,” Grace Hopper was an American computer scientist and United States Navy rear admiral. A pioneer in the field, she was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer in 1944, and invented the first compiler for a computer programming language. She popularized the idea of machine-independent programming languages, which led to the development of COBOL, one of the first high-level programming languages. She is credited with popularizing the term “debugging” for fixing computer glitches (inspired by an actual moth removed from the computer). Owing to the breadth of her accomplishments and her naval rank, she is sometimes referred to as “Amazing Grace.” Please see below for links to articles and documentaries about Grace in the list of resources. You can also find a link to learn more about the creative illustrations of Grace by Rachel Ignotofsky located below. See an entertaining clip of Grace Hopper with Dave Letterman. You can also learn more about her contributions via this Cryptologic Bytes article.
Grace Hopper Illustration by artist Rachel Ignotofsky