Published for Ada Lovelace Day 2026 Ada Lovelace Day is an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Named after the pioneering mathematician and writer often regarded as the world's first computer programmer, the day highlights the people whose ideas have helped shape modern computing. This year's Ada Lovelace Day also provides an opportunity to reflect on the life and legacy of Margaret Hamilton, the software engineer who led development of the software used during NASA's Apollo missions and who died on 30 September 2026 at the age of 90. The software engineer who helped land humans on the Moon Hamilton is perhaps best known for her work on the Apollo Guidance Computer at MIT's Instrumentation Laboratory. During the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969, the onboard computer became overloaded and began displaying error messages. Rather than failing completely, the software prioritised the most important tasks required for landing, allowing the mission to continue safely. The event has become one of the best-known examples of resilient software engineering and helped cement Hamilton's reputation as one of the pioneers of modern computing. But her contribution extended well beyond a single mission. Hamilton was among the first people to argue that software should be treated as an engineering discipline in its own right. At a time when software development was still a relatively new field, she championed reliability, correctness and designing systems that could anticipate and recover from failures. Many of the principles she advocated remain central to software engineering today. Margaret Hamilton in a mock-up of an Apollo command module at MIT. Hamilton led development of the onboard software that helped guide NASA's Apollo missions to the Moon. Questions that remain relevant More than fifty years later, the technologies we build may be very different, but some of the questions Hamilton was asking remain remarkably familiar. How do we know a system will behave as intended? How do we design systems that can cope with unexpected situations? How do we build technology that people can trust? As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly embedded in everyday life, these questions have taken on renewed importance. Researchers across the School of Informatics continue to explore challenges relating to trustworthy AI, explainable AI, formal verification, software reliability, security and privacy.Recent examples include work led by Tariq Elahi, alongside Myrto Arapinis, Jianyi Cheng, Michele Ciampi and Wenda Li, through the ARIA Scaling Trust programme, which explores how AI agents might verify security requirements before taking action. Researchers such as Ajitha Rajan are also working on many of the safety and verification challenges that Hamilton highlighted decades ago. Earlier this year, Ajitha co-edited a Royal Society theme issue on Safe, Secure and Robust AI for Safety-Critical Systems, bringing together researchers exploring how AI systems can be made more reliable, secure and trustworthy in high-stakes applications. Although today's technologies would have been unimaginable during the Apollo era, the underlying challenge remains familiar: building systems that behave safely, reliably and as intended. Professor Ajitha Rajan's research focuses on software testing and verification, helping ensure that complex software and AI systems behave safely and reliably. Dr Myrto Arapinis is part of the School of Informatics team contributing to the ARIA Scaling Trust programme, exploring how future AI systems can behave safely and securely. A lasting legacy Throughout her career, Margaret Hamilton advocated for careful engineering, rigorous thinking and designing systems that accounted for the realities of how people actually interact with technology. One well-known story recounts how Hamilton's young daughter accidentally caused a simulator to fail by selecting the wrong commands in the wrong order. Hamilton used the experience to argue that software should be designed to anticipate human mistakes rather than assume users would always behave perfectly. That philosophy feels no less relevant today. Ada Lovelace Day is an opportunity to celebrate the women whose ideas transformed science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This year, it is also an opportunity to remember one of the pioneers who helped define software engineering itself. Margaret Hamilton's work reminds us that progress in computing is not only about making systems more powerful. It is also about making them safe, reliable and worthy of our trust. More than fifty years after Apollo 11, that lesson remains as relevant as ever. Ada Lovelace Day celebrates the achievements of women in STEM and the lasting impact their ideas continue to have on science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Read more MIT News: Margaret Hamilton tribute article Ada Lovelace Day – Celebrating the achievements of women in STEM This article was published on Tuesday 13 October 2026
