Pioneering female engineers

Although society is still working on bridging the compensation gap between genders, women have made significant progress in the engineering field. Let’s now take a look at some amazing pioneers who broke barriers, set precedent, and laid down the forerunning fortified foundation for female engineers today in America and around the globe.

Elisa Leonida Zamifirescu

As the first female European engineer, Zamifirescu graduated with a degree in engineering from Berlin’s Royal Academy of Technology in 1912. She worked at the Institute of Geology and contributed to the Red Cross during World War I. While at the Institute of Geology, she studied and analyzed different forms of natural resources, such as coal, natural gas, copper, and chromium.

Martha J. Coston

Coston developed the tri-light Night Signals system during the Civil War, which used signal technology to enable ships to fire off flares while both docked and out at sea. Directly after she received a patent in 1859, the U.S. Navy snagged the technology for $20,000. This invention also helped nonmilitaristic ships navigate around at night.

Edith Clarke

 

Clarke studied at  the University of Wisconsin-Madisonand became the first woman electrical engineer. Sh e worked on developing long-distance methods of communication at AT&T in 1912. Clarke was a renowned salaried engineer at General Electric Co. Shortly thereafter, Clarke attended MIT in 1918 and was the first female at MIT to earn a master’s degree in electrical engineering. She received numerous awards for her scholarly findings and patented a special calculator that she invented. After retiring, Clarke taught engineering at the University of Texas.

Margaret Ingels

Through perseverance and persistence, Ingels was the first woman in America to earn a graduate degree in mechanical engineering. She gained hands-on experience through working at various tech companies like the United States Bureau of Mines and the Chicago Telephone Company. While working at Carrier Lyle Heating and Ventilation Corporation, she created the Anderson-Armspach dust determinator, which helped with air filtration. Ingles traveled to spread her wisdom through lectures around the country. The name of one of her most popular lectures was “Petticoats and Slide Rules.”

Emily Warren Roebling

Roebling married civil engineering husband Washington Roebling who was in charge of the managing the Brooklyn Bridge’s construction. After graduating from NYU with a law degree, she became an engineering manager in 1882 and helped with all Brooklyn Bridge-related design work that her husband and father-in-law were working on after they both fell ill. Roebling honed and bolstered her knowledge about cable construction, catenary curve calculating, stress analysis, and strength of materials. Since her presence at the bridge’s construction was so strong, people began believing that she was, in fact, the one who developed the design of the bridge. 

Linda Cureton

Cureton demonstrates her skill set and engineering talents as the CIO for NASA. Previously, she was a technologist for government agencies like the Department of Energy, the Department of Justice, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

Virginia Rometty

Holding the prestigious CEO position at IBM, Rometty has worked with the company for 31 years. She has ranked one of Forbes' “50 Most Powerful Women” for eight consecutive years.

Sheryl Sandberg

Since 2008, Sandberg has been the COO of Facebook. Previously she worked on projects at Google in the global online sales and operations departments. In 2013, she released her book Lean In; Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, advocating and addressing female presence and equity in the workplace. This book encourages women to achieve their goals, refute workplace discrimination, break societal and self-constructed gender barriers, and lean in toward leadership positions, stating that “a truly equal world would be one where women ran half our countries and companies and men ran half our homes.”

Ruchi Sanghvi

As Facebook’s first female engineer, she headed the product management department for an array of projects including Facebook Platform and Facebook Connect. Sanghvi began working at Dropbox after the company acquired her startup business, Cove.

Marissa Mayer

Mayer was Google’s first female engineer, helping the company develop keystone technology. She is currently the CEO at Yahoo.