Grace was born in New York City on December 9, 1906. She studied math and physics at Vassar College then In 1928, she went off to Yale University, where she received a master's degree in mathematics two years later. That same year, she married Vincent Foster Hopper, becoming Grace Hopper. Then in 1931, Hopper began teaching at Vassar while, at the same time, studying at Yale, which is where she earned a Ph.D. in mathematics. This would give her the title as one of the first few women to earn such a degree.
Hopper being a associate professor at Vassar, continued her teach road until World War II compelled her to join the U.S. Naval Reserve. She was ordained as a lieutenant in June 1944. Hopper was assigned to the Bureau of Ordnance Computation Project at Harvard University because of her mathematical background. This is where she would learned to program a Mark I computer.
After the war, Hopper remained with the Navy as a reserve officer. She would worke with the Mark II and Mark III computers. She was at Harvard when a moth was found to have shorted out the Mark II, this would be one of the causes for the term, "computer-bug". Hopper moved into private industry in 1949 to cointinue her computer cearee. She would first work with the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, then with Remington Rand, where she oversaw programming for the UNIVAC computer. Three years later, her team created the first compiler for computer languages. This compiler was a precursor for the Common Business Oriented Language, or COBOL, which would be a widely adapted language that would be used around the world. Though she did not invent COBOL, Hopper encouraged its adaptation.
At the age of 60 she would be called back to work for the navy. She would remain with the Navy for 19 years. When she retired in 1986, she was a rear admiral as well as the oldest serving officer in the service. Saying that she would be "bored stiff" if she stopped working entirely, Hopper took another job post-retirement and stayed in the computer industry for several more years. A few years later, she would be the first female individual to be awarded the National Medal of Technology. At the age of 85, she died in Arlington, Virginia, on January 1, 1992. They laid her to rest in the Arlington National Cemetery.
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