Margaret Heafield Hamilton (born August 17, 1936) is an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (a ...

systems engineer Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design, integrate, and manage complex systems over their life cycles. At its core, systems engineering utilizes systems thinking ...

, and business owner. She was director of the Software Engineering Division of the

MIT Instrumentation Laboratory Draper Laboratory is an American non-profit research and development organization, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts; its official name is The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc (sometimes abbreviated as CSDL). The laboratory specialize ...

, which developed on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo program. She later founded two software companies—Higher Order Software in 1976 and Hamilton Technologies in 1986, both in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

. Hamilton has published more than 130 papers, proceedings, and reports, about sixty projects, and six major programs. She is one of the people credited with coining the term "

software engineering Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term '' ...

". On November 22, 2016, Hamilton received the

Presidential Medal of Freedom The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merito ...

from president

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

for her work leading to the development of on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo Moon missions.

Early life and education

Margaret Elaine Heafield was born August 17, 1936, in Paoli, Indiana, to Kenneth Heafield and Ruth Esther Heafield (). The family later moved to

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

, where Margaret graduated from Hancock High School in 1954. She studied mathematics at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

in 1955 before transferring to Earlham College, where her mother was a student; she earned a BA in mathematics with a minor in philosophy in 1958. She cites Florence Long, the head of the math department at Earlham, as helping with her desire to pursue abstract mathematics and become a mathematics professor. She says her poet father and headmaster grandfather inspired her to include a minor in philosophy in her studies.

Career

In Boston, Hamilton initially intended to enroll in graduate study in

abstract mathematics Pure mathematics is the study of mathematical concepts independently of any application outside mathematics. These concepts may originate in real-world concerns, and the results obtained may later turn out to be useful for practical applications, ...

at Brandeis. However, in mid-1959, Hamilton began working for Edward Norton Lorenz, in the

meteorology Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not ...

department at MIT. She developed software for predicting weather, programming on the

LGP-30 The LGP-30, standing for Librascope General Purpose and then Librascope General Precision, was an early off-the-shelf computer. It was manufactured by the Librascope company of Glendale, California (a division of General Precision Inc.), and ...

and the

PDP-1 The PDP-1 (''Programmed Data Processor-1'') is the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP series and was first produced in 1959. It is famous for being the computer most important in the creation of hacker culture at Massachuset ...

computers at

Marvin Minsky Marvin Lee Minsky (August 9, 1927 – January 24, 2016) was an American cognitive and computer scientist concerned largely with research of artificial intelligence (AI), co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory, an ...

Project MAC Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...

. Her work contributed to Lorenz's publications on

chaos theory Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of scientific study and branch of mathematics focused on underlying patterns and deterministic laws of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, and were once thought to have ...

. At the time,

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...

and

were not yet established disciplines; instead, programmers learned on the job with hands-on experience. She moved on to another project in the summer of 1961, and hired and trained Ellen Fetter as her replacement.

SAGE Project

From 1961 to 1963, Hamilton worked on the

Semi-Automatic Ground Environment The Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) was a system of large computers and associated networking equipment that coordinated data from many radar sites and processed it to produce a single unified image of the airspace over a wide area. S ...

(SAGE) Project at the MIT Lincoln Lab, where she was one of the programmers who wrote software for the prototype AN/FSQ-7 computer (the XD-1), used by the U.S. Air Force to search for possibly unfriendly aircraft. She also wrote software for a satellite tracking project at the

Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing for ...

. The SAGE Project was an extension of Project Whirlwind, started by MIT to create a computer system that could predict weather systems and track their movements using simulators. SAGE was soon developed for military use in anti-aircraft air defense. Hamilton said: It was her efforts on this project that made her a candidate for the position at NASA as the lead developer for Apollo flight software.

Draper Laboratory

Hamilton then joined the

Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Draper Laboratory is an American non-profit research and development organization, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts; its official name is The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc (sometimes abbreviated as CSDL). The laboratory specialize ...

at MIT, which worked on the Apollo Space Mission. Hamilton was initially hired as a programmer for this process but moved on into systems design. By 1965, she was in charge of all Command Module software, which was all the software for navigation and lunar landing guidance. Hamilton's team was responsible for developing in-flight software, which included algorithms designed by various senior scientists for the Apollo command module, Apollo lunar module, and the subsequent Skylab. Another part of her team designed and developed the systems software. This included error detection and recovery software such as restarts and the Display Interface Routines (also known as the Priority Displays), which Hamilton designed and developed. She worked to gain hands-on experience during a time when computer science courses were uncommon and software engineering courses did not exist. Hamilton also served as Director of the Software Engineering Division. Her areas of expertise include:

systems design Systems design interfaces, and data for an electronic control system to satisfy specified requirements. System design could be seen as the application of system theory to product development. There is some overlap with the disciplines of system ana ...

and

software development Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development invol ...

enterprise Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to: Business and economics Brands and enterprises * Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company * Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company * Enterpri ...

and

process modeling The term process model is used in various contexts. For example, in business process modeling the enterprise process model is often referred to as the ''business process model''. Overview Process models are processes of the same nature that ar ...

, development paradigm, formal

systems modeling Systems modeling or system modeling is the interdisciplinary study of the use of models to conceptualize and construct systems in business and IT development.software reliability and

reuse Reuse is the action or practice of using an item, whether for its original purpose (conventional reuse) or to fulfill a different function ( creative reuse or repurposing). It should be distinguished from recycling, which is the breaking down of ...

, domain analysis, correctness by built-in language properties, open-architecture techniques for robust systems, full life-cycle automation,

quality assurance Quality assurance (QA) is the term used in both manufacturing and service industries to describe the systematic efforts taken to ensure that the product(s) delivered to customer(s) meet with the contractual and other agreed upon performance, design ...

, seamless integration, error detection and recovery techniques, human-machine interface systems,

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also ...

s, end-to-end testing techniques, and life-cycle management techniques. These made her code incredibly reliable because they helped programmers identify and fix anomalies before they became major problems.

Apollo program

In one of the critical moments of the

Apollo 11 Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module ''Eagle'' on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, and ...

mission, the

Apollo Guidance Computer The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was a digital computer produced for the Apollo program that was installed on board each Apollo command module (CM) and Apollo Lunar Module (LM). The AGC provided computation and electronic interfaces for guidan ...

, together with the on-board flight software, averted an abort of the landing on the Moon. Three minutes before the lunar lander reached the Moon's surface, several computer alarms were triggered. The on-board flight software captured these alarms with the "never supposed to happen displays" interrupting the astronauts with priority alarm displays. Hamilton had prepared for just this situation years before: By some accounts, the astronauts had inadvertently left the rendezvous radar switch on, causing these alarms to be triggered (the claim that the radar was left on inadvertently by the astronauts is disputed by Robert Wills with

the National Museum of Computing The National Museum of Computing is a museum in the United Kingdom dedicated to collecting and restoring historic computer systems. The museum is based in rented premises at Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire and opened in 2007. ...

). The computer was overloaded with interrupts caused by incorrectly phased power supplied to the lander's rendezvous radar. The program alarms indicated "executive overflows", meaning the guidance computer could not complete all of its tasks in real time and had to postpone some of them. The asynchronous executive designed by J. Halcombe Laning was used by Hamilton's team to develop asynchronous flight software: Hamilton's priority alarm displays interrupted the astronauts' normal displays to warn them that there was an emergency "giving the astronauts a

go/no go A go/no go test is a two-step verification process that uses two boundary conditions, or a binary classification. The test is passed only when the ''go'' condition has been met and also the ''no go'' condition has been failed. The test gives no in ...

decision (to land or not to land)". Jack Garman, a NASA computer engineer in mission control, recognized the meaning of the errors that were presented to the astronauts by the priority displays and shouted, "Go, go!" and they continued. Paul Curto, senior technologist who nominated Hamilton for a NASA Space Act Award, called Hamilton's work "the foundation for ultra-reliable software design". Hamilton later wrote of the incident:

Businesses

In 1976, Hamilton co-founded with Saydean Zeldin a company called Higher Order Software (HOS) to further develop ideas about error prevention and fault tolerance emerging from their experience at MIT working on the Apollo program. They created a product called USE.IT, based on the HOS methodology they developed at MIT. It was successfully used in numerous government programs including a project to formalize and implement C-IDEF, an automated version of IDEF, a

modeling language A modeling language is any artificial language that can be used to express information or knowledge or systems in a structure that is defined by a consistent set of rules. The rules are used for interpretation of the meaning of components in the st ...

developed by the U.S. Air Force in the

Integrated Computer-Aided Manufacturing Integrated Computer-Aided Manufacturing (ICAM) is a US Air Force program that develops tools, techniques, and processes to support manufacturing integration. It influenced the computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) and computer-aided manufactur ...

(ICAM) project. In 1980, British-Israeli computer scientist David Harel published a proposal for a structured programming language derived from HOS from the viewpoint of

and/or And/or (sometimes written and or) is an English grammatical conjunction used to indicate that ''one or more'' (or even all) of the cases it connects may occur. It is used as an inclusive ''or'' (as in logic and mathematics), because saying "or'' ...

subgoals. Others have used HOS to formalize the semantics of linguistic quantifiers, and to formalize the design of reliable real-time embedded systems. Hamilton was the CEO of HOS through 1984 and left the company in 1985. In March 1986, she founded Hamilton Technologies, Inc. in

. The company was developed around the

Universal Systems Language Universal Systems Language (USL) is a systems modeling language and formal method for the specification and design of software and other complex systems. It was designed by Margaret Hamilton based on her experiences writing flight software for the ...

(USL) and its associated automated environment, the 001 Tool Suite, based on her paradigm of development before the fact for systems design and software development.

Legacy

Anthony Oettinger,

Barry Boehm Barry William Boehm (May 16, 1935 – August 20, 2022) was an American software engineer, distinguished professor of computer science, industrial and systems engineering; the TRW Professor of Software Engineering; and founding director of the Ce ...

, and Hamilton have been credited with naming the discipline of "

". Hamilton details how she came to make up the term "software engineering": When Hamilton started using the term "software engineering" during the early Apollo missions, software development was not taken seriously compared to other engineering, nor was it regarded as a science. Hamilton was concerned with legitimizing software development as an engineering discipline. Over time the term "software engineering" gained the same respect as any other technical discipline. The IEEE Software September/October 2018 issue celebrates the 50th anniversary of software engineering. Hamilton talks about "Errors" and how they influenced her work related to software engineering and how her language, USL, could be used to prevent the majority of "Errors" in a system. Writing in ''

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fran ...

'', Robert McMillan noted: "At MIT she assisted in the creation of the core principles in computer programming as she worked with her colleagues in writing code for the world's first portable computer". Hamilton's innovations go beyond the feats of playing an important role in getting humans to the Moon. According to ''Wired''s Karen Tegan Padir: "She, along with that other early programming pioneer,

COBOL COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily ...

inventor

Grace Hopper Grace Brewster Hopper (; December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral. One of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, she was a pioneer of compu ...

, also deserve tremendous credit for helping to open the door for more women to enter and succeed in STEM fields like software." In 2019, to celebrate 50 years to the Apollo landing, Google decided to make a tribute to Hamilton. The mirrors at the Ivanpah plant were configured to create a picture of Hamilton and the Apollo 11 by moonlight.

Awards

* In 1986, Hamilton received the Augusta Ada Lovelace Award by the Association for Women in Computing. * In 2003, she was given the NASA Exceptional Space Act Award for scientific and technical contributions. The award included $37,200, the largest amount awarded to any individual in NASA's history.''Michael Braukus'' NASA New
"NASA Honors Apollo Engineer"
(September 3, 2003) * In 2009, she received the Outstanding Alumni Award by Earlham College. * In 2016, she received the

from Barack Obama, the highest civilian honor in the United States. * On April 28, 2017, she received the Computer History Museum Fellow Award, which honors exceptional men and women whose computing ideas have changed the world. * In 2017, a "Women of NASA"

LEGO Lego ( , ; stylized as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of variously colored interlocki ...

set went on sale featuring

minifigures A Lego minifigure, commonly referred to as a minifig, is a small plastic articulated figurine produced by Danish toy manufacturer The Lego Group. They were first produced in 1978 and have been a success, with over 4 billion produced worldwide ...

of Hamilton,

Mae Jemison Mae Carol Jemison (born October 17, 1956) is an American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut. She became the first black woman to travel into space when she served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle ''Endeavour''. J ...

Sally Ride Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012) was an American astronaut and physicist. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman and the third woman to fly in space, after cosmonauts V ...

, and Nancy Grace Roman. * In 2018, she was awarded an

honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...

degree by the

Polytechnic University of Catalonia The Technical University of Catalonia ( ca, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, , es, link=no, Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña; UPC), currently referred to as BarcelonaTech, is the largest engineering university in Catalonia, Spai ...

. * In 2019, she was awarded The Washington Award. * In 2019, she was awarded an

degree by

Bard College Bard College is a private liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic District—a National Historic Landmark. Founded in 1860 ...

. * In 2019, she was awarded the Intrepid Lifetime Achievement Award.

Publications

* * *Hamilton, M. (April 1994)
"Inside Development Before the Fact"
(Cover story). Special Editorial Supplement. 8ES-24ES. ''Electronic Design''. * Hamilton, M. (June 1994)
"001: A Full Life Cycle Systems Engineering and Software Development Environment"
(Cover story). Special Editorial Supplement. 22ES-30ES. ''Electronic Design''. * Hamilton, M.; Hackler, W. R. (2004). "Deeply Integrated Guidance Navigation Unit (DI-GNU) Common Software Architecture Principles". (Revised December 29, 2004). DAAAE30-02-D-1020 and DAAB07-98-D-H502/0180, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ, 2003–2004. * Hamilton, M.; Hackler, W. R. (2007).
Universal Systems Language for Preventative Systems Engineering
, ''Proc. 5th Ann. Conf. Systems Eng. Res.'' (CSER), Stevens Institute of Technology, Mar. 2007, paper #36. * Hamilton, M.; Hackler, W. R. (2007).
A Formal Universal Systems Semantics for SysML
. 17th Annual International Symposium, INCOSE 2007, San Diego, CA, Jun. 2007. * Hamilton, M.; Hackler, W. R. (2008).
Universal Systems Language: Lessons Learned from Apollo
. ''IEEE Computer'', Dec. 2008. *

Personal life

Hamilton has a sister Kathryn. She met her first husband, James Cox Hamilton, in the mid-1950s while attending college. They were married on June 15, 1958, the summer after she graduated from Earlham. She briefly taught high school mathematics and French at a public school in

Boston, Indiana Boston is a town in Boston Township, Wayne County, Indiana, United States. The population was 138 at the 2010 census. History Boston was named after Boston, Massachusetts. Boston was originally called New Boston, and under the latter name was ...

. The couple then moved to

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- m ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

, where they had a daughter, Lauren, born on November 10, 1959. They divorced in 1967 and Margaret married Dan Lickly two years later.

References

External links

*
Hamilton Technologies, Inc.

MIT News

Margaret Hamilton
Video produced by '' Makers: Women Who Make America''
Margaret Hamilton ’58– Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient
Earlham College profile {{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, Margaret 1936 births Living people People from Paoli, Indiana American computer scientists American women computer scientists Apollo program Earlham College alumni University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty NASA people Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients MIT Lincoln Laboratory people Computer programmers Software engineers Scientists from Indiana 20th-century American women scientists American women academics 21st-century American women Women rocket scientists