User:Allisonmurrayj/sandbox

Career
Margaret began her career in 1944 working as a statistician at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While she worked there, she also taught math at the US Department of Agricultural Graduate School and took sampling theory graduate courses. About a year later she joined the US Air Force and worked as a civilian in Germany. She returned to the United States two years later and began working in the Naval Reactors Division of Argonne National Laboratory as a junior mathematician. While working at Argonne, Margaret made calculations for physicists creating a prototype for a submarine reactor and attended atomic physics and reactors design classes. In 1949 she worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Minnesota but returned to Argonne National Laboratory in 1951. Following her return to Argonne, Margaret became an assistant mathematician in the Reactor Engineering Division and worked on AVIDAC, an early computer. In the 1950’s Margaret wrote software, reactor applications, mathematical subroutines, and utilities for three other Argonne computers, the ORACLE, GEORGE, and UNIVAC. From the late 1950’s to early 1960’s she led Argonne’s Applied Mathematics Division’s Application Programming. While working in this department, Margaret developed teams to fix program problems in reactors, biology, chemistry, physics, management, and high energy physics applications. In 1960, Margaret worked with others to establish the Argonne Code Center, which later became the National Energy Software Center (NESC). Margaret would later become director of the NESC from 1972-1991. In 1980 Margaret was promoted to Senior Computer Scientist at Argonne. Margaret retired in 1991 but still worked at Argonne from 1993-2006 as a "special term appointee".

Impact on Women in Science
During her time in Argonne, Margaret was very supportive of her female coworkers. Women working at Argonne described her as a role model with a welcoming presence. According to Margaret’s son Jay, she thought women were “given all the responsibilities and none of the authorities” and fought to change that. When Margaret rose in ranks at Argonne, she made sure to hire women and recommend them for promotions. Margaret worked with other women to organize an Association for Women in Science in Chicago. While in this AWIS, Margaret held executive board positions and led two conferences for high school students, teachers, and administration.