Birth:
August 17, 1936
Major Academic Events:
Margaret studied mathematics at Earlham College. After her graduation she decided to be a high school teacher for a short amount of time. She then moved to Boston with her husband James Hamiliton to study abstract mathematics at Brandeis University. Some of her awards include NASA’s Exceptional Space Act Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Contributions to Computer Science:
Margaret helped write the code that was used on the Apollo Mission to the Moon. She worked at MIT’s Instrumentation Laboratory where she led a team of scientists tasked to develop control and guidance modules for the Apollo space missions. Hamilton then created software to detect system errors if there ever was a crash. Both of these components were crucial for the success of the Apollo 11 mission which landed the first person to the Moon. Some of her smaller contributions are co-founding the company Higher Order Software in 1976 and establishing Hamilton Technologies in 1986. During her time, no school taught software engineering. She was also involved in creating the first U.S. air defense system.