REVIEW: The woman who wrote the codes that took humanity to the Moon - Margaret Hamiliton

Meet Margaret Heafield Hamilton is a computer scientist, systems engineer, and business owner. She was Director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which developed on-board flight software for the Apollo space program.Hamilton's team's work prevented an abort of the Apollo 11 moon landing. 

In 1986, she became the founder and CEO of Hamilton Technologies, Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company was developed around the Universal Systems Language based on her paradigm of Development Before the Fact (DBTF) for systems and software design.
Hamilton has published over 130 papers, proceedings, and reports concerned with the 60 projects and six major programs in which she has been involved.

Official photo for NASA, 1989.

Hamilton is credited with coining the term "software engineering".In this field she was one of those who developed the concepts of asynchronous software, priority scheduling, end-to-end testing, and human-in-the-loop decision capability, such as priority displays which then became the foundation for ultra reliable software design.

Her Awards

• 1986, Augusta Ada Lovelace Award, Association for Women in Computing.

• 2003, 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.

• 2009, Outstanding Alumni Award, Earlham College.