Dr. Irene Peden is Professor Emerita of Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington. She joined the faculty in 1962 and served terms as Associate Dean of the College of Engineering and Associate Chairman of the EE Dept., in addition to her…
Carolyn Phillips was a recognized leader in health & safety issues in the early days of environmental engineering and industrial hygiene. In 1960 she graduated from Pratt Institute with a mechanical engineering degree, where she was one of three…
Elizabeth "Pete" Plunkett was a successful engineer in the aviation and astronautical fields. She attended the University of Washington and began working for the Boeing Company her sophomore year. Plunkett stayed with the company her entire 37-year…
Betty Preece is a distinguished secondary and college educator in science, math, and engineering. In 1947 she was the first female electrical engineering graduate of the University of Kentucky and upon graduation worked as an engineer for General…
Gloria Reinish was the first woman to receive an undergraduate degree, a master’s degree (both in electrical engineering), and a doctorate (in bioengineering) from Columbia University. She began her career in industry, working for Bell Labs,…
Margaret Taber is an electrical and electronics engineering educator whose career nearly parallels the development of electronic, or computer, technology. She graduated from Cleveland State University in 1958 with two bachelor degrees, one in…
Josephine Webb graduated from Purdue University in 1940 and became a Buhl Research Fellow in the Electrical Engineering Department of the Carnegie Institute of Technology for two years. In 1942 she joined Westinghouse Electric Corporation as a Design…
There were few other women studying engineering at the University of Illinois when Betty Lou Bailey entered its undergraduate mechanical engineering program. When she received her degree in 1950 she was the only woman in a graduating class of 700…
Yvonne Brill's high school principal encouraged her to become a teacher, her parents remained neutral, and her physics teacher believed that, as a woman, she would not become anything at all. Nevertheless, Brill pushed to receive a Bachelor of…
The first person in her family to graduate from high school, Lois Cooper originally went to Tougaloo College in Mississippi to study law. She discovered that she preferred working with numbers and eventually graduated in 1954 with a degree in…