Grace Hopper Grace Murray Hopper ( December 9 , 1906January 1 , 1992 ) 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 , and developed the first compiler for a computer programming language . She conceptualized the idea of machine - independent programming languages , which led to the development of COBOL , one of the first modern programming language s . 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 " . The U . S . Navy destroyer USS " Hopper " ( DDG - 70 ) is named for her , as was the Cray XE6 " Hopper " supercomputer at NERSC and also a study room at Chalmers University of Technology . Early life and education . Hopper was born Grace Brewster Murray in New York City . She was the oldest in a family of three children . She was curious as a child , a lifelong trait ; at the age of seven she decided to determine how an alarm clock worked , and dismantled seven alarm clocks before her mother realized what she was doing ( she was then limited to one clock ) . For her preparatory school education , she attended the Hartridge School in Plainfield , New Jersey . Rejected for early admission to Vassar College at age 16 ( her test scores in Latin were too low ) , she was admitted the following year . She 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 1934 , she earned a Ph . D . in mathematics from Yale under the direction of Øystein Ore . Her dissertation , " New Types of Irreducibility Criteria " , was published that same year . Hopper began teaching mathematics at Vassar in 1931 , and was promoted to associate professor in 1941 . She was married to New York University professor Vincent Foster Hopper ( 1906 – 1976 ) from 1930 until their divorce in 1945 . She never remarried , and she kept his surname . Career . World War II . In 1943 during World War II , Hopper obtained a leave of absence from Vassar and was sworn into the United States Navy Reserve , one of many women to volunteer to serve in the WAVES . She had to get an exemption to enlist ; she was below the Navy minimum weight of . She reported in December and trained at the Naval Reserve Midshipmen ' s School at Smith College in Northampton , Massachusetts . 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 . She served on the Mark I computer programming staff headed by Howard H . Aiken . Hopper and Aiken coauthored three papers on the Mark I , also known as the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator . Hopper ' s request to transfer to the regular Navy at the end of the war was declined due to her age ( 38 ) . She continued to serve in the Navy Reserve . 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 . UNIVAC . In 1949 , Hopper became an employee of the Eckert - Mauchly Computer Corporation as a senior mathematician and joined the team developing the UNIVAC I . In the early 1950s the company was taken over by the Remington Rand corporation and it was while she was working for them that her original compiler work was done . The compiler was known as the A compiler and its first version was A - 0 . In 1952 she had an operational compiler . " Nobody believed that , " she said . " I had a running compiler and nobody would touch it . They told me computers could only do arithmetic . " In 1954 Hopper was named the company ' s first director of automatic programming , and her department released some of the first compiler - based programming languages , including ARITH - MATIC , MATH - MATIC and FLOW - MATIC . COBOL . In the spring of 1959 a two - day conference known as the Conference on Data Systems Languages CODASYL brought together computer experts from industry and government . Hopper served as the technical consultant to the committee , and many of her former employees served on the short - term committee that defined the new language COBOL . The new language extended Hopper ' s FLOW - MATIC language with some ideas from the IBM equivalent , COMTRAN . Hopper ' s belief that programs should be written in a language that was close to English rather than in machine code or languages close to machine code ( such as assembly language ) was captured in the new business language , and COBOL would go on to be the most ubiquitous business language to date . From 1967 to 1977 , 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 . She developed validation software for COBOL and its compiler as part of a COBOL standardization program for the entire Navy . Standards . In the 1970s , Hopper advocated for the Defense Department to replace large , centralized systems with networks of small , distributed computers . Any user on any computer node could access common databases located on the network . She pioneered the implementation of standards for testing computer systems and components , most significantly for early programming languages such as FORTRAN and COBOL . The Navy tests for conformance to these standards led to significant convergence among the programming language dialects of the major computer vendors . In the 1980s , these tests ( and their official administration ) were assumed by the National Bureau of Standards ( NBS ) , known today as the National Institute of Standards and Technology ( NIST ) . Retirement . Hopper retired from the Naval Reserve at age 60 , in accordance with Navy attrition regulations , with the rank of commander at the end of 1966 . < ref name = " urlAttrition / Retirement " > < / ref > She was recalled to active duty in August 1967 for a six - month period that turned into an indefinite assignment . She again retired in 1971 , but was asked to return to active duty again in 1972 . She was promoted to captain in 1973 by Admiral Elmo R . Zumwalt , Jr . After Rep . Philip Crane saw her on a March 1983 segment of " 60 Minutes " , he championed , a joint resolution in the House of Representatives which led to her promotion to commodore by special Presidential appointment . She remained on active duty for several years beyond mandatory retirement by special approval of Congress . In 1985 , the rank of commodore was renamed rear admiral , lower half . She retired ( involuntarily ) from the Navy on August 14 , 1986 . At a celebration held in Boston on the USS " Constitution " to celebrate her retirement , Hopper was awarded the Defense Distinguished Service Medal , the highest non - combat award possible by the Department of Defense . At the time of her retirement , she was the oldest active - duty commissioned officer in the United States Navy ( 79 years , eight months and five days ) , and aboard the oldest commissioned ship in the United States Navy ( 188 years , nine months and 23 days ) . She was then hired as a senior consultant to Digital Equipment Corporation , a position she retained until her death in 1992 , aged 85 . Her primary activity in this capacity was as a goodwill ambassador , lecturing widely on the early days of computers , her career , and on efforts that computer vendors could take to make life easier for their users . She visited a large fraction of Digital ' s engineering facilities , where she generally received a standing ovation at the conclusion of her remarks . During many of her lectures , she illustrated a nanosecond using salvaged obsolete Bell System 25 pair telephone cable , cut it to 11 . 8 inch ( 30 cm ) lengths , the distance that light travels in one nanosecond , and handed out the individual wires to her listeners . Although no longer a serving officer , she always wore her Navy full dress uniform to these lectures . She was interred with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery . Awards and recognition . The Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center is located at 7 Grace Hopper Avenue in Monterey , California . " Grace Murray Hopper Park " , located on South Joyce Street in Arlington , Virginia , is a small memorial park in front of her former residence ( River House Apartments ) and is now owned by Arlington County , Virginia . Women at the world ' s largest software company , Microsoft Corporation , formed an employee group called Hoppers and established a scholarship in her honor . Hoppers has over 3000 members worldwide . Brewster Academy , a school located in Wolfeboro , New Hampshire , United States , dedicated their computer lab to her in 1985 , calling it the Grace Murray Hopper Center for Computer Learning . The academy bestows a Grace Murray Hopper Prize to a graduate who excelled in the field of computer systems . Hopper had spent her childhood summers at a family home in Wolfeboro . An administration building on Naval Support Activity Annapolis ( previously known as Naval Station Annapolis ) in Annapolis , Maryland is named the Grace Hopper Building in her honor . Building 1482 aboard Naval Air Station North Island , housing the Naval Computer and Telecommunication Station San Diego , is named the Grace Hopper Building . Building 6007 , C2 / CNT West , Command , control , communications , computers , intelligence , surveillance and reconnaissance , or C4ISR , Center of Excellence in Aberdeen Proving Ground , Maryland is named the Rear Admiral Grace Hopper Building . A named professorship in the Department of Computer Sciences was established at Yale University in her honor . Joan Fiegenbaum was named to this chair in 2008 . Grace Hopper ' s legacy was an inspiring factor in the creation of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing . Held yearly , this conference is designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront . A bridge over Goose Creek joining the north and south sides of the Naval Support Activity Charleston side of Joint Base Charleston , South Carolina is named the Grace Hopper Memorial Bridge in her honor . Grace Hopper was awarded 40 honorary degrees from universities worldwide during her lifetime . Anecdotes . Throughout much of her later career , Grace Hopper was much in demand as a speaker at various computer - related events . She was well known for her lively and irreverent speaking style , as well as a rich treasury of early war stories . She also received the nickname " Grandma COBOL " . Jay Elliot described Grace Hopper as appearing to be " ' all Navy ' , but when you reach inside , you find a ' Pirate ' dying to be released " .