Butler was the first female fellow at the American Nuclear Society and director of the National Energy Software Center at Argonne.
[4] Margaret Kampschaefer studied statistics and differential calculus at Indiana University Bloomington, having discovered the joy of mathematical accuracy during her undergraduate courses.
[6] She returned to the United States after two years and began working in the Naval Reactors Division of Argonne National Laboratory as a junior mathematician.
[7] Following her return to Argonne, Butler became an assistant mathematician in the Reactor Engineering Division and worked on AVIDAC, an early computer.
In the 1950s she wrote software, reactor applications, mathematical subroutines, and utilities for three other Argonne computers, the ORACLE, GEORGE, and UNIVAC.
[7] While in AWIS, she held executive board positions and led two conferences for high school students, teachers, and administration.
They had a son Jay in 1954 and Butler later recalled that “when I was pregnant, I thought I would announce the fact by wearing a maternity outfit to work.
Much to my astonishment, Dr. Chu managed to overlook the fact, saying that it was wise of me to find an outfit designed to keep me free of chalk dust from the office chalkboard”.