Women And Technology

Ada Lovelace ( December 10, 1815- November 27, 1852)

Born Augusta Ada Byron on December 10, 1815, the only legitimate child of poet Lord Byron and Anne Isabella Byron, Ada Lovelace was a writer and mathematician. She worked on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, an early all-purpose computer. Her notes, written in 1842 and 1843, for the Analytical Engine became the first algorithm encoded to be processed by a machine. Therefore, Lovelace was the world's first computer programmer.

Lord Byron separated from his wife and left England when Ada was just four months old. He died when Lovelace was eight. Bitter at Lord Byron, Ada's mother encouraged her daughter's passion for mathematics in the hope that it would prevent Ada from developing the same "insanity" her father had. Upon her death, Lovelace requested to be buried next to her father. Throughout her life, Lovelace referred to herself as an analyst and a "poetical scientist."

Grace Hopper ( December 9, 1906 - January 1, 1992) 

Along with rising to the rank of Rear Admiral in the United States Navy, Grace Hopper was a computer scientist pioneer. Hopper was credited with popularizing the terms "computer bug" and "debugging" after her associates discovered an actual moth in the Mark II computer at Harvard University. Hopper was one of the first Harvard Mark I computer programmers. She was also the primary creator of COBOL (COmmon Business-Oriented Language), one of the first programming languages. COBOL first appeared in 1959.

The oldest of three children, Hopper was born in New York City. She dismantled her first alarm clock at age eight, to see how it worked. In 1928, she graduated from Vassar with a bachelor's degree in physics and mathematics before going on to receive a Master's degree from Yale University. While at Vassar, she took a leave of absence to enter the U.S. Navy Reserve, serving in the WAVES. By 1934, she had a PH.D. in mathematics from Yale. In 1930, she married NYU professor Vincent Foster Hopper. They divorced in 1945 and she never remarried.