Women in Science and Engineering at Yale (2020 Edition)

Grace Murray Hopper (1906–1992), Ph.D.

Photo: James Davis, 1984

Grace Hopper was a mathematician who received her master’s degree at Yale in 1930 and her Ph.D. at Yale in 1934. For a time she taught at Vassar College. She coined the term “bug” for glitches in machinery and is considered the “Mother” of COBOL. She served as a Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy. In 1972, she was awarded Yale’s Lucius Wilbur Cross Medal. On Feb. 11, 2017, Yale President Peter Salovey announced the renaming of undergraduate residential college Calhoun College to Grace Hopper College, to honor Grace Murray Hopper.