Grace Hopper: podcast appearances and interviews

Grace Brewster Hopper was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral recognized as a pioneer of computer programming. She was instrumental in devising the theory of machine-independent programming languages and applied this theory in developing the FLOW-MATIC programming language and COBOL, an early high-level programming language still in use today. Hopper was among the first programmers on the Harvard Mark I computer and authored what is considered the first computer manual titled 'A Manual of Operation for the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator'. She earned doctoral degrees in mathematics and mathematical physics from Yale University and served as a professor of mathematics at Vassar College before joining the United States Navy Reserve during World War II. Hopper's computing career began in 1944 with her work on the Harvard Mark I team under Howard H. Aiken. Later, she joined the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation where she managed the development of one of the first COBOL compilers and contributed to the development of the UNIVAC I computer. She believed programming should be simplified into an English-based language, culminating in the development of compilers that translated English into machine code. In 1952, she completed the A-0 System linker, and by 1954, she was leading Eckert–Mauchly’s department for automatic programming operations. Her involvement in the CODASYL consortium helped create COBOL, promoting its adoption through the 1960s. Her legacy endures through various honors, including the naming of a Navy destroyer, supercomputers, and GPU architectures after her. She received multiple honorary degrees, the National Medal of Technology, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. A plaque commemorating her pioneering work was dedicated by the IEEE at the University of Pennsylvania in 2024.