Margaret Elaine Heafield Hamilton
Personal Information
Born: 1936
Country of Birth: USA
Nationality: USA
Ethnicity: White
Education
Earlham College BA Mathematics 1958; studied mathematics at University of Michigan before transferring to Earlham College
""I began to use the term 'software engineering' to distinguish it from hardware and other kinds of engineering, yet treat each type of engineering as part of the overall systems engineering process.""
— Margaret Elaine Heafield Hamilton
Professional Life
Field of Study: Computer Science
Institution/Corporation: MIT; NASA
Degrees & Memberships: Honorary Degrees: Polytechnic University of Catalonia (2018) Bard college (2019)
Awards & Achievements
Awards: 2016, Presidential Medal of Freedom; 1986, Augusta Ada Lovelace Award, Association for Women in Computing; 2003, NASA Exceptional Space Act Award; 2009, Outstanding Alumni Award, Earlham College; 2017, Computer History Museum Fellow Award; 2019, The Washington Award; 2019, Intrepid Lifetime Achievement Award; 2022, National Aviation Hall of Fame; 2017, Lego introduced Margaret Hamilton action figure as part of its Women of NASA collection
Achievements: coined the term "software engineer;" led the team that developed the in-flight software for Apollo space Program & personally focused on programming software to detect system errors & recover information in case of a computer crash; founded 2 software companies (1976 Higher Order Software with Saydean Zeldin & 1986 Hamilton Technologies); her work contributed to Edward Norton Lorenz's publication on chaos theory; wrote the software for the prototype AN/FSQ-7 dcomputer (the XD-1) used by the US Air Force to search for possibly unfriendly aircraft; wrote software for a satellite tracking program at the Air Force Cambridge Research Labs; developed software for Skylab
Created the term "software engineer" to describe her work
Developed Universal Systems Language (USL) with its integrated system-to software "Development Before the Fact" preventative life cycle & its automation, the 001 Tool Suite
Responsible for the software that allowed Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin to land on the Moon
Wrote software used by US Air Force to search for possibly unfriendly aircraft
Early in her career wrote software for predicting weather
1st programmer hired by NASA for Apollo Program
1976, with Saydean Zelden, founded Higher Order Software (HOS) to develop ideas about error prevention & fault tolerance; created USE.IT which was used in many government programs; left company in 1985
1986, founded Hamilton Technologies, Inc