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Kathleen Booth, born July 9th, 1922, was a British computer Scientist who contributed to the early works of assembly language with her PhD in Mathematics. Her work was based on a planning-program style in which she would write about the workings of the APE(X)C and ARC systems, the programming and concept. In later life, she would further teach her findings, hosting a programming course and becoming a Research Fellow before her passing at age 100 on September 29th, 2022.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2022/10/25/kathleen-booth-computer-pioneer-who-made-major-breakthrough/

https://historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=652

https://hbr.org/1989/07/new-ventures-lessons-from-xerox-and-ibm

Date of Death: January 1, 1992

Major academic events:

·         Attended college preparatory school Hartridge School in Plainfield, NJ.

·         Was originally rejected from Vassar College on grounds of low Latin scores.

·         Eventually accepted to Vassar College and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1928.

·         Earned a master’s degree in mathematics and physics from Yale in 1930.

·         Earned a PHD in mathematics from Yale in 1934.

Contributions to Computer Science:

          Hopper was originally commissioned into the Navy in December of 1940. During WWII in 1943, she was assigned to the Mark I Computer programming staff. She also co-authored three papers on the MK I, one of the earliest practical. After the war, she became an employee of the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation, where she joined the team developing the UNIVAC I. During her tenure at the corporation, she created a cutting-edge software known as the compiler. This was the precursor to modern text-based languages. Her compiler could receive inputs in plain English instead of symbol code. After the A-3 and B-0 computers were created under her leadership, she attended the two-day computer conference known as CODASYL. It was here that she advised a committee that defined the computing language COBOL, a revolutionary program that would form the base of most modern computer languages. The COBOL language extended Hopper’s earlier work and was later standardized by the U.S. Navy. Hopper also advocated for the Department of Defense to replace centralized computers with computer networks, created standards for the testing of computer systems and components, and helped to converge different commercial coding languages into similar variants. COBOL is still used today.

Sources:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/white-house-medal-of-freedom-margaret-hamilton-grace-hopper/

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/grace-hopper

https://history.computer.org/pioneers/hopper.html

Date of Death: Still Alive

Major academic events:

·         Received his master’s degree in mathematics and computer science from the University of Amsterdam in 1982

·         Received a bronze medal in the International Mathematical Olympiad

Contributions to Computer Science:

          After graduating from the University of Amsterdam, Van Rossum found work at the Centrum Wiskunde & Informacia, where he contributed a glob() routine to BSD Unix. More importantly, he helped to develop ABC, a general purpose programming language. He also created a web browser known as Grail. In December of 1989, Van Rossum set his mind towards creating a script interpreter for a new programming language he intended to build. Using a descendant form of the ABC language, he programmed the first iteration of the language Python and made it available on GitHub as open-source software. He would continue to develop Python during most of his tenure working at Google. Eventually, he developed Mondrian, a web-based code review system for Python. After finishing his work at Google, he worked with the Python community until officially finding a new job at Microsoft, where he works to this day. Python in now within the top ten most-used coding languages, even taking the #1 spot in October of 2021. Python is considered a simple, open source, and easy to learn program behind many modern websites and applications.

 Sources:

https://computerhistory.org/blog/2018-chm-fellow-guido-van-rossum-python-creator-benevolent-dictator-for-life/?key=2018-chm-fellow-guido-van-rossum-python-creator-benevolent-dictator-for-life

https://www.artima.com/articles/the-making-of-python

https://web.archive.org/web/20180724114116/http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/2018-chm-fellow-guido-van-rossum-python-creator-benevolent-dictator-for-life/

Source 2:https://www.biography.com/scientists/alan-turing

Source 3:https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Turing/