orig. Grace Brewster Murray
born Dec. 9, 1906, New York, N.Y., U.S.
died Jan. 1, 1992, Arlington, Va.
U.S. mathematician and rear admiral.
She received a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1934 and taught at Vassar College in 193144. As a U.S. Navy officer (194386), she worked on Harvard's Mark I (1944) and Mark II (1945) computers, and in 1949 she helped design an improved compiler for translating a programmer's instructions into computer codes. She helped devise UNIVAC I, the first U.S. commercial electronic computer (1951), and wrote naval applications for COBOL . She received the National Medal of Technology in 1991.