This Month in STEMā€”Celebrating Scientists
Aug 30, 2022Mina Rees
In August, we celebrate the birthday of computer scientist and mathematician Mina Rees. Starting her success as early as high school, where she earned valedictorian, Rees would go on to receive her Ph.D. in mathematics.
Early in her career, the United States and Britain honored Rees for her work as Assistant to the Chief at the Applied Mathematics Panel of the Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War II. This led her to develop a mathematical research program at the Office of Naval Research, post-WWII. Educational programs across the country improved and benefited from her work.
Rees’ work directly improved the programming world, as well. In addition to her work with mathematical research, Rees participated in a computer research program that funded the production of the first commercially-produced electronic, stored-program computer in 1951. This computer was called Univac 1 and was used in analyzing the 1950 census data. These are just a few of Rees’ many lifetime achievements. Because of her work and tenacity, Rees’ accomplishments have fueled positive advances in computer programming!
Grace Hopper
Another famed computer scientist worked in the Navy, as well. Grace Hopper, U.S. Navy admiral, was among one of the first computer scientists. Like Rees, Hopper was also a mathematician. She was among the first people to discover a “bug” in a computer. In computer science, debugging means to look for and resolve errors in a program’s code. Hopper was working with a computer, known as the Mark II, that was constantly producing errors. It turns out that there was an actual bug in the computer! Hopper and her colleagues found a moth that was ruining the computer’s electronics. She was not the only one to discover this, but she is believed to have made this incident famous.
Hopper is also credited with inventing the “first English-language data-processing compiler.” These compilers can read high-level programs, often referred to as source code, and translate them into language a machine can understand, known as object code. Her invention paved the way for the development of computer-programming languages. Hopper even helped develop one of these languages, called COBOL.
The accomplishments of programmers like Rees and Hopper remind us of the possibilities that we open up when we engage in problem-solving and exercise our computer programming skills.
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