Margaret Heafield Hamilton is a computer scientist and system engineer. She was the Director of the Software Engineering Division at Charles Stark Draper Laboratory where she was also the Director of project Apollo, which put a man on the moon.
For her work on the Apollo systems she was given NASA’s Exceptional Space Act Award.
Founding Hamilton Technologies Inc. in 1986, she continues her work in Universal Systems Language.
She was born on Aug. 17th, 1936 and is currently 79 years old. Hamilton earned her BA in math at Earlham College, which is where she learned about programming.
Hamilton made great progress in computing and was aware of the impediments that other women faced during that time.
She won the 1986 Ada Lovelace Award. The award is presented to women who have excelled in scientific and technical achievement, as well as service to the computing community and contributions on behalf of women in computing.

“On hindsight, some of the things that were accepted back then, because we (men and woman) did not know any better, are not accepted now; and they often seem quaint and even astounding when looking back”

• Margaret Hamilton