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There are pioneers in every profession. Some pioneers create a field, others elevate it to a new level, and yet others completely transform a field. It is always amazing to read about these pioneers, but when they are women, they are even more interesting to read about. Grace Murray Hopper was a pioneer in computer science. This is even more amazing since this a field that has been dominated by men since the beginning.

Hopper was born in New York City on December 9, 1906. Even at a young age she was intensely curious. At age seven, she showed a particular interest in gadgets by dismantling seven alarm clocks in an attempt to see how they worked. Hopper's parents encouraged her and her siblings through their words and actions - they could do anything if they put their mind to it. Her father inspired her to pursue higher education and avoid being limited to typical feminine roles of the time.

After graduating from New York's Vassar College in 1928, she joined the college faculty. At the same time, she continued her studies in mathematics at Yale University in Connecticut where she earned her Masters degree in 1930 and her PhD in 1934. She was only one of four women in a doctoral program of ten students, and her doctorate in mathematics was a rare accomplishment in its day. With the outbreak of World War II, Hopper made the life altering decision to join the Navy. She was trained at the Midshipman's School for Women where she graduated first in her class.

Hopper's first assignment was at the Bureau of Ordinance Computation. There she became the third programmer of the Mark I, the world's first large-scale automatically sequenced digital computer. As she continued her work on all of the Mark series of computers, she was credited for coining the term "bug" in reference to a glitch in the computer's machinery. The story is that she found a moth which temporarily shut down the computer. The term "bug" has now evolved to mean either a glitch in the hardware or software of the computer.

After leaving the military, Hopper invented the first computer compiler. This is a program that allows computer programmers to "speak" to computers with words rather than numbers as they had to up until that point. Even though other people in the field of computer science balked at her idea of speaking to a computer with English commands, she persisted. Imagine telling someone what to do only using ones and zeros instead of words. Up until Hopper's invention of the first compiler, this is what computer programmers had to do use to get computers to perform even simple tasks such as addition and subtraction. Computers would not have been able to advance as rapidly as they have without this extraordinary invention.

Hopper went on to work on a variety of computers and programming languages until she retired from the military in 1986. She spent the remainder of her life as a consultant to Digital Equipment Corporation.

Grace Murray Hopper moved the field of computer science by leaps and bounds and she was able to excel in a field dominated by men. She was a pioneer that completely transformed the field of computer science. She demonstrated to generations of women that we are not limited to the typical feminine roles of the time; we can excel in anything we put our mind to.