Grace Hopper Timeline

Hopper graduated first in her class in 1944 and was assigned as a lieutenant, junior grade to the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard University, where she began her computing career as a member of the Harvard Mark I team led by Howard H. Aiken.

While Hopper was working on a Mark II Computer at Harvard University in 1947, her associates discovered a moth that was stuck in a relay and impeding the operation of the computer, an incident popularly associated with the term 'debugging.'

Image source: Software bug

In 1949, Hopper became an employee of the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation as a senior mathematician and joined the team developing the UNIVAC I computer. She remained at the Harvard Computation Lab until then, having turned down a full professorship at Vassar in favor of working as a research fellow under a Navy contract.

The UNIVAC, developed by the team Hopper had joined, was the first known large-scale electronic computer to be on the market in 1951.

Image source: UNIVAC I

By 1952, Hopper had finished her program linker (originally called a compiler), which was written for the A-0 System. In 1952 she also published her first paper on the subject of compilers and had an operational link-loader, which at the time was referred to as a compiler.

In 1954, Eckert–Mauchly chose Hopper to lead their department for automatic programming, making her the company's first director of automatic programming, and she led the release of some of the first compiled languages like FLOW-MATIC. Her work beginning in 1954 was influenced by the Laning and Zierler system, the first compiler to accept algebraic notation as input.

In the spring of 1959, computer experts from industry and government were brought together in a two-day conference known as the Conference on Data Systems Languages (CODASYL). Hopper participated in the consortium, helping to create a machine-independent programming language called COBOL, which was based on English words.

Image source: COBOL

In May 1950, Hopper was one of the founding members of the Society of Women Engineers.

Image source: Society of Women Engineers

In 1969, Hopper received the inaugural Data Processing Management Association Man of the Year award (now called the Distinguished Information Sciences Award). Earlier, in 1964, she had been awarded the Society of Women Engineers Achievement Award, the Society's highest honor, recognizing her contributions as an engineering manager and originator of automatic programming systems.

Image source: Association of Information Technology Professionals

The annual Grace Murray Hopper Award for Outstanding Young Computer Professionals was established in 1971 by the Association for Computing Machinery.

Image source: Grace Murray Hopper Award

In 1973, Hopper became the first American and the first woman of any nationality to be made a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society. She was also elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering that year.

Image source: British Computer Society

Hopper received numerous honors in the early 1980s: an Honorary PhD from Clarkson University in 1981, the American Association of University Women Achievement Award and an honorary Doctor of Science from Marquette University in 1982, and the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1983.

Brewster Academy, a school in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, dedicated their computer lab to Grace Hopper in 1985, calling it the Grace Murray Hopper Center for Computer Learning.

Hopper received the Golden Gavel Award from Toastmasters International in 1988, and in 1991 she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and received the National Medal of Technology.

Image source: American Academy of Arts and Sciences

In 1994, Hopper was posthumously inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, honoring her pioneering contributions to computer science and the Navy.

Image source: National Women's Hall of Fame

USS Hopper (DDG-70), a guided-missile destroyer named in honor of Grace Hopper — only the second U.S. Navy warship named for a woman — was launched in 1996.

Image source: USS Hopper

In 2001, Eavan Boland wrote a poem dedicated to Grace Hopper titled 'Code' in her release Against Love Poetry, and The Gracies, the Government Technology Leadership Award, were named in Hopper's honor.

Image source: Eavan Boland

Joan Feigenbaum was named to the Grace Hopper Chair at Yale University in 2008, continuing Hopper's academic legacy at her alma mater.

In 2009, the Department of Energy's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center named its flagship system 'Hopper,' and the Office of Naval Intelligence created the Grace Hopper Information Services Center.

Image source: National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center

Google made a Google Doodle for Hopper's 107th birthday, an animation of her sitting at a computer using COBOL to print out her age. Since 2013, Hopper's official portrait has also been included in the matplotlib Python library as sample data to replace the controversial Lenna image.

Image source: Google Doodle

Beginning in 2015, one of the nine competition fields at the FIRST Robotics Competition world championship has been named for Grace Hopper.

On November 22, 2016, Hopper was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama in recognition of her remarkable contributions to the field of computer science.

Image source: Presidential Medal of Freedom

In 2017, Hopper College at Yale University was named in her honor, following the university's renaming of Calhoun College.

In 2019, Time created 89 new covers to celebrate women of the year starting from 1920; it chose Hopper for 1959.

Image source: Time (magazine)

Minor planet 5773 Hopper, discovered by Eleanor Helin, is named in Grace Hopper's honor; the official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on November 8, 2019.

Image source: Grace Hopper

In 2020, Google named its new undersea network cable 'Grace Hopper'. The cable connects the US, UK and Spain; although estimated to be completed by 2022, the Grace Hopper cable was completed in 2021 and stretches 3,900 miles. Also in 2020, Hopper Hall became the U.S. Naval Academy's new cyber building.

In 2021, the Admiral Grace Hopper Award was established by the chancellor of the College of Information and Cyberspace (CIC) of the National Defense University to recognize leaders in information and cybersecurity throughout the National Security community.

Image source: National Defense University (United States)

On June 30, 2021, a satellite named after Hopper (ÑuSat 20 or 'Grace', COSPAR 2021-059AU) was launched into space.

Image source: ÑuSat

In 2024, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) dedicated a plaque at the University of Pennsylvania in honor of the invention of the A-0 compiler, which functioned as a linker/loader, by Grace Hopper during her time as a lecturer in the School of Engineering. Nvidia has also named their 2024 CPU generation Grace and GPU generation Hopper after her.

Image source: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

On August 26, 2024, the NSA released a 90-minute talk given by Hopper in 1982, released in two parts, showcasing her legendary lectures on computing.

Image source: National Security Agency