Eleanor K. Baum became the first female dean of an engineering school in the United States in 1984. A year later, she was elected president of the American Society for Engineering Education, another first for a woman.
Ursula M. Burns earned a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from New York University Tandon School of Engineering (then Brooklyn Polytechnic) in 1980 and a master of science in mechanical engineering from Columbia University a year. She is the first African-American woman CEO to head a Fortune 500 company.
Lina Echeverria was the first woman to seek admission to and graduate with a degree in engineering geology from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia at Medellin.
Aprille Ericsson is the first Black woman to receive a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Howard University, as well as a Ph.D. in Engineering at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Space Flight Center.
Lillian Evelyn Moller Gilbreth (May 24, 1878 – January 2, 1972) was one of the first working female engineers holding a Ph.D.
Dr. Asha Goyal was vice president of quality for IBM Global Services. Her mobility issues as a result of polio at age 2 drove her passion for innovation.
Navy Admiral Michelle Howard is the U.S. Navy’s first-ever female four-star admiral. Howard is the first woman to be named Vice Chief of Naval Operations.
Duy-Loan T. Le is an engineer and the first woman and Asian to get elected to the rank of Texas Instruments Senior Fellow.
Ellen Ochoa became the first Hispanic woman in the world to go to space when she served on a nine-day mission aboard the shuttle Discovery in 1993.
Irene Hernandez Roberts was an IBM Master Inventor with over 50 IBM Patents.
Rear Admiral Eleanor V. Valentin is the first female flag officer to serve as director of the United States Navy Medical Service Corps.
Chien-Shiung Wu (May 31, 1912 – February 16, 1997) was a Chinese American physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, helping to develop the process for separating uranium metal into the U-235 and U-238 isotopes by gaseous diffusion.
Rachel Zimmerman, at just twelve years of age, created a device known as the Blissymbol printer. She began working on her ideas as a school science project. Zimmerman’s concept made it possible for non-speaking people to be able to communicate in different ways, without help, for the first time.
