Margaret Hamilton (software engineer)

Margaret Elaine Hamilton (née Heafield; born August 17, 1936) is an American 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 NASA's Apollo program. She later founded two software companies—Higher Order Software in 1976 and Hamilton Technologies in 1986, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

For other people named Margaret Hamilton, see Margaret Hamilton.
Margaret Hamilton
Hamilton in 1995
Born
Margaret Elaine Heafield

(1936-08-17) August 17, 1936
Paoli, Indiana, U.S.
EducationUniversity of Michigan
Earlham College (BA)
OccupationSoftware engineer
Spouses
  • James Cox Hamilton
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1958; div. 1967)​
  • Dan Lickly
    ​
    (m. 1969)​
Children1
RelativesJames Cox Chambers (former son-in-law)
AwardsPresidential Medal of Freedom

Hamilton has published more than 130 papers, proceedings, and reports, about sixty projects, and six major programs. She invented the term "software engineering", stating "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."

On November 22, 2016, Hamilton received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from president Barack Obama for her work leading to the development of on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo Moon missions.

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