Author Archives: Stephanie

ALD21: Raye Montague, Naval Engineer

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Raye Montague

Raye Montague was an American engineer who revolutionised naval ship design, proving that computer aided design could produce first drafts of ship specifications in hours rather than years.

Although Montague had wanted to become an engineer from childhood, her home university, the University of Arkansas, did not accept black students on their engineering program. Instead, she completed a degree in business and moved to Washington, DC, starting her career in the US Navy as a typist. She attended night school to learn computer programming and engineering.

Montague’s desk at the Naval Ship Engineering Center was positioned next to the UNIVAC I computer, and she learnt how to program it through observation. When the UNIVAC I programmer was off sick one day, she stepped in to run the computer. She persuaded her boss to promote her to computer systems analyst, but was forced to work the night shift.

The Navy had spent six years unsuccessfully trying to design ships using computers and in 1971, this task was given to Montague. She took the contractors’ program, tore it down, analysed and revised it so that it met her requirements, and then rebuilt it to run on the Navy’s computer. This meant more night shifts.

She was then asked to design an actual ship, an Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate, a task that usually took two years. She brought her team together on a Saturday morning and set the computer running. At midnight she went home for a rest, only to be called back to the office. The program had finished the design in 18 hours and 26 minutes. For this feat, Montague was awarded the Navy’s Meritorious Civilian Service Award in 1972.

She was the first woman to become program manager of the Navy’s Information Systems Improvement Program, with the civilian equivalent rank of naval captain. The Navy started using her system to design all of its ships and submarines. She later worked on ships such as the Seawolf-class submarine and the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Further reading

ALD21 Podcasts: Look Up!, Bryony Lanigan & Patricia Skelton

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Look Up!, Bryony Lanigan & Patricia Skelton

Join Bryony Lanigan and Patricia Skelton from the Royal Observatory Greenwich for Look Up!, as they discuss the night sky and recent news in the wide world of astronomy and get top tips on what to look out for in the night sky each month. 

Recent episodes have covered: 

  • the sample returned from asteroid Ryugu by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft and the fallen radio dish at Arecibo Observatory;
  • preserving our heritage in space, and some newly published research about the motion of stars in our galaxy; and,
  • Mars missions, a newly-found most distant solar system object, and a new theory about the formation of supermassive black holes.

You can follow their work here:

Twitter: @ROGAstronomers
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bryony-lanigan-203193142 and linkedin.com/in/patricia-skelton-64672b6b

ALD21: Clarice Phelps, Nuclear Chemist

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Clarice Phelps

Clarice Phelps is a nuclear chemist who was part of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) team that worked with the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research to discover tennessine (element 117). She is the first African-American woman to have contributed to the discovery of a chemical element. 

Tennessine, a synthetic superheavy element, is the second heaviest element in the periodic table. Phelps was part of the ORNL team that purified the berkelium-249 which would be fused with calcium-48 in a high-energy particle accelerator in Russia to create tennessine. 

“We spent months pouring over calculations, preparing reagents, putting items in the glove box, going over everything over and over and over again,” Phelps told The Brilliant. 

Berkelium-249 has a half-life of 330 days, but the sample needed to be used within six months for the experiment to work. Despite Russian officials rejecting the package twice due to incomplete paperwork, the berkelium-249 eventually made it to Russia in June 2009. The discovery of tennessine was announced in April 2010 and officially recognised in 2015. 

Phelps is now the program manager for the Ni-63 and Se-75 industrial use isotope programs at ORNL, and is working on methods for separating actinide and lanthanide isotopes for medical use.

You can follow her work here:

Twitter: @ClaricePhelps39.
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/claricephelps

Further reading

ALD21 Books: Headstrong, Rachel Swaby

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Rachel Swaby

Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science – And The World, Rachel Swaby

In 2013, the New York Times published an obituary for Yvonne Brill. It began: “She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job, and took eight years off from work to raise three children.” It wasn’t until the second paragraph that readers discovered why the Times had devoted several hundred words to her life: Brill was a brilliant rocket scientist who invented a propulsion system to keep communications satellites in orbit, and had recently been awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. Among the questions the obituary – and consequent outcry – prompted were, Who are the role models for today’s female scientists, and where can we find the stories that cast them in their true light?      

Headstrong delivers a powerful, global, and engaging response. Covering Nobel Prize winners and major innovators, as well as lesser-known but hugely significant scientists who influence our every day, Rachel Swaby’s vibrant profiles span centuries of courageous thinkers and illustrate how each one’s ideas developed, from their first moment of scientific engagement through the research and discovery for which they’re best known. This fascinating tour reveals 52 women at their best – while encouraging and inspiring a new generation of girls to put on their lab coats.

Order the book on Bookshop.org.uk here and your purchase will support a local independent bookshop of your choice!

You can follow her work here:

Twitter: @rachelswaby
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rachel-swaby-0b4a6319

ALD21: Dr Gladys West, Mathematician

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Dr Gladys West

Dr Gladys West is a mathematician whose models of the shape of the Earth were integral to the development of the Global Positioning System (GPS). 

In 1956, West began work as a computer programmer at the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren, Virginia, collecting satellite data and using it to calculate their exact position. She was only the second black woman employed there, and one of only four black employees.

West worked on the data-processings systems used to analyse altimetry data from satellites such as GEOS 3. In 1978, she became the project manager for SEASAT, the first satellite that could remotely sense oceans, and used its data to measure ocean depths. Using an IBM 7030 Stretch computer, she developed complex algorithms to account for variations in gravitational, tidal and other forces that distort the shape of the Earth, also known as the geoid. Her work significantly improved the precision of calculations used to model the geoid. 

In 1986, she published a technical report, Data Processing System Specifications for the Geosat Satellite Radar Altimeter, which outlined how to increase the accuracy when estimating geoid heights and vertical deflection, which are important aspects of satellite geodesy, or the use of satellites to measure the dimensions of the Earth. West’s models of the geoid formed the basis of GPS.

In 2000, she finished her PhD in public administration and policy affairs, at the age of 70. In 2021, her contributions to science were recognised by the UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering which awarded her the Prince Philip Medal, their highest individual honour. 

Further reading