Professor Edith Clarke

Edith Clarke was an electrical engineer who was the first woman to become a professor of electrical engineering in the USA and developed a method to calculate the maximum power that a transmission line could carry and remain stable.

Clarke was born in Maryland in 1883. After being orphaned at the age of 12, she was raised by her sister and used her inheritance to study mathematics and astronomy at Vassar College. In 1911, she began studying civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, but she took a summer job as a human ‘computer’ at AT&T at the end of her first year and enjoyed it so much that she stayed there to train other computers.

She studied electrical engineering at Columbia University in her evenings, then went on to become the first woman to earn a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

She found it difficult to get work as an engineer after graduation, so worked for General Electric, supervising computers. She invented and patented an early graphing calculator, called the Clarke Calculator, which solved equations involving hyperbolic functions ten times faster than other methods.

In 1921, frustrated by a lack of opportunity and equality, Clarke moved to Turkey for a year to teach at the Constantinople Women’s College. When she returned to the USA, GE offered her a position as an electrical engineer, and she became the first professional female electrical engineer in the country.

She also became the first woman to present a paper at the American Institute of Electrical Engineers’ (AIEE) annual meeting. Her paper explained how to calculate the maximum power that a line could carry and remain stable, which became very important as the energy grid grew. The AIEE also awarded her the Best Regional Paper Prize in 1932 and the Best National Paper Prize in 1941, and her work underpinned much of the industry’s understanding of how to deal with power and transmission.

Clarke worked on the West Hoover Dam, developing and installing the hydroelectric turbines.

She also lectured GE engineers, and wrote a textbook based on those lectures, Circuit Analysis of A-C Power Systems, which became a standard text for years. In it, she describes the mathematical methods for addressing power system losses and electrical equipment performance.

In 1947, she became the first female professor of electrical engineering in the USA when she joined the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Texas at Austin. She taught at Austin until her retirement in 1957

In 1948, she became the first female Fellow of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and was the first female full voting member in the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. In 1954, she was given the Society of Women Engineers’ Achievement Award. In 2015, she was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

She died in 1959, aged 76.

Further Reading

• Edith Clarke, Wikipedia
• Edith Clarke, Edison Tech Center
• US1552113A – Calculator, Google Patents, 1921
• Five Fast Facts About Engineer Edith Clarke, Pat Adams, US Department of Energy, 19 March 2015
• The Engineer Who Foreshadowed the Smart Grid–in 1921, Melissa C. Lott, Scientific American, 30 March 2016
• 10 Things You Should Know About Edith Clarke, A Badass, Pioneering Electrical Engineer, Women You Should Know, 10 February 2018
• Edith Clarke: The First Female Electrical Engineer and Professor of Electrical Engineering, Christopher McFadden, Interesting Engineering, 25 March 2018
• Member Spotlight: Edith Clarke, Electrical Engineer, Jill S. Tietjen, Society of Women Engineers, 19 February 2019
• Introducing our Female Engineer of the month: Edith Clarke, University of North Texas Society of Women Engineers, 3 August 2019
• Edith Clarke, First Female Electrical Engineer, Rediscover STEAM: Medium, 12 March 2021
• Late, great engineers: Edith Clarke – America’s first woman engineer, The Engineer, 13 July 2021

The Caring Scientist, Adriana Wolf & Nikoline Borgermann

Laboratories are leaving behind a massive ecological footprint that isn’t exactly improving the state of our planet. But what can wet-lab scientists do to reduce their environmental impact? And is it possible to go green in the lab without compromising research? In this podcast, Adriana Wolf & Nikoline discuss obstacles and solutions related to sustainability in science, and give you hands-on tips on how to reduce the environmental impact of your lab work without compromising research.

Recent episodes covered: 

• Nikolaj Lervad Hansen and Ann Schirin Mirsanaye from the University of Copenhagen to talk about how they adjusted their freezer temperature from -80C to -70C.
• Hannah Johnson from Green Labs Netherlands talks about how the network started and what they are doing. 
• Raj Patey from My Green Lab talks about sustainable products and procurement
• CEO of the non-profit organisation Seeding Labs, Melissa Wu, discusses how donating surplus lab equipment helps ecological sustainability and social equity in science. 
• A discussion of sustainable conferencing and air travel in academia with Kate Whitfield, sustainability expert at ISGLOBAL, and Teun Bousema, Professor at Radboud University Medical Centre Nijmegen.

You can:

Listen on Spotify
Follow on Twitter: @caringscientist @AvaSustain @AdrianaWolfPer1 

Professor Flossie Wong-Staal

Professor Flossie Wong-Staal, née Wong Yee Ching, 黄以静, was a virologist and molecular biologist who was the first to molecularly clone Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and created a map of its genes, which was crucial to proving that HIV causes Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

Born in Guangzhou, China, in 1946, she and her family fled to Hong Kong after the Communist Revolution during the late 1940s. When she was 18. Wong-Staal moved to California to study bacteriology at the University of California, Los Angeles, then moved to San Diego for her postdoctoral research before moving to the National Cancer Institute in Maryland in 1973, where she refocused her research on retroviruses.

She discovered that human T-lymphotropic virus, HTLV-1 was the cause of T cell leukaemia, proving that retroviruses can cause human disease. Her work showed that the virus affected human DNA, activating cancer-causing genes called oncogenes.

She went on to work on a new disease that was very similar to HTLV-1, and in 1975, she successfully cloned HIV. She mapped the virus’s genome which both revealed how genetically diverse HIV is, but also allowed the development of blood tests based on detection of the viral genome rather than virus antibodies. She became a world leader in HIV research, studying its genetic structure, replication strategies and regulatory mechanisms.

She published over 400 papers on human retroviruses and AIDSand was the most-cited female scientist of the 1980s. In 1990, the Institute for Scientific Information named her as the top woman scientist of the 1980s.

In 1990, she founded the Centre for AIDS Research at UCSD. Her research focused on gene therapy and on HIV-1’s relationship to Kaposi’s sarcoma, which is a common ailment for people with AIDS.

Wong-Staal became professor emerita upon retirement from UCSD in 2002, and cofounded Immusol (later iTherX Pharmaceuticals), a biopharmaceutical company, becoming its chief scientific officer. She worked there on improving drugs for hepatitis C.

She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2016, and Discover named her one of the 50 “most extraordinary women scientists” in 2002.

Wong-Staal died on 8 July 2020, aged 73.

Further Reading

• Flossie Wong-Staal, Wikipedia
• Flossie Wong-Staal, National Women’s Hall of Fame, 2016
• In Memoriam: Flossie Wong-Staal, Ph.D., National Cancer Institute, 13 July 2020
• Flossie Wong-Staal, Who Unlocked Mystery of H.I.V., Dies at 73, Faye Flam, The New York Times, 17 July 2020
• Flossie Wong-Staal (1946–2020), Genoveffa Franchini, Science, 11 September 2020

This post was contributed by Chloe Rodgers and is an extract from her Highland Women in STEM project. 

Nicola Chisholm

Nicola Chisholm began her scientific career as a sample administrator at Scottish Water. She then became a Laboratories Team Leader and eventually worked as a scientist there. Her work involved carrying out analytical methods within the cryptosporidium and microbiology departments, determining the qualitative and quantitative taste and odour in raw and potable waters.

She thinks it is important that people realise analytical scientists are required within the water industry, as the majority are unaware of the daily quality control testing to ensure water is safe to drink. Chisholm now works as a scientist at Merck Group.

When asked what could be changed to encourage more girls into STEM, she said:

“Growing up your stereotypical scientist was often a ‘geeky’ man working alone. It’s important that we break this stereotype. It’s necessary that from a young age schools focus on bringing science into the classroom and that society makes a conscious effort to portray female scientists in textbooks, online, on television, wherever! Motivate young girls with female scientists who have accomplished great things so they then gain the curiosity and passion to pursue a career in science. We also need to give girls the knowledge on what’s available work wise in the scientific field and how broad and diverse science can be. There’s industries I continue to learn about that require scientists! So never limit a young girl’s freedom and knowledge and never underestimate them.”

You can follow her work on LinkedIn.

What do you love about your job/course?
I love that my job is a service to public health. When I tell people about my work they are often amazed as they never realised analytical scientists are required and exist in the water industry. Most people don’t know about the essential quality control testing that is ongoing every day to enable safe drinking water. It’s a rewarding feeling knowing you’re doing something to support society.

What do you think could be changed to better encourage more girls into your line of work/a STEM career?
Growing up your stereotypical scientist was often a ‘geeky’ man working alone. It’s important that we break this stereotype. It’s necessary that from a young age schools focus on bringing science into the classroom and that society makes a conscious effort to portray female scientists in textbooks, online, on television, wherever! Motivate young girls with female scientists who have accomplished great things so they then gain the curiosity and passion to pursue a career in science. We also need to give girls the knowledge on what’s available work wise in the scientific field and how broad and diverse science can be. There’s industries I continue to learn about that require scientists! So never limit a young girl’s freedom and knowledge and never underestimate them.

What do you like about the location of your job/course?
Inverness is a fast growing city. New opportunities continue to come here and I hope more scientific industries consider Inverness as the ideal location to base themselves.

Since interviewing, Chisholm has become a senior scientist in a lab in Glasgow.

Reaching for the Moon: The Autobiography of NASA Mathematician Katherine Johnson, Katherine Johnson

As a young girl, Katherine Johnson showed an exceptional aptitude for math. In school she quickly skipped ahead several grades and was soon studying complex equations with the support of a professor who saw great promise in her. But ability and opportunity did not always go hand in hand. As an African American and a girl growing up in an era of brutal racism and sexism, Johnson faced daily challenges. Still, she lived her life with her father’s words in mind: “You are no better than anyone else, and nobody else is better than you.”

In the early 1950s, Johnson was thrilled to join the organisation that would become NASA. She worked on many of NASA’s biggest projects including the Apollo 11 mission that landed the first men on the moon. Johnson’s story was made famous in the bestselling book and Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures. In Reaching for the Moon she tells her own story for the first time, in a lively autobiography that will inspire young readers everywhere.

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

About the Author

Mathematician and computer scientist Katherine Johnson was born in 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Her mother was a teacher and her father was a farmer and janitor. From a young age, Johnson counted everything and could easily solve mathematical equations. She attended West Virginia State High School and graduated from high school at age fourteen. Johnson received her BS degree in French and Mathematics in 1937 from West Virginia State University. Johnson was one of the first African Americans to enrol in the mathematics program at West Virginia University.

After college, Johnson began teaching in elementary and high schools in Virginia and West Virginia. In 1953, she joined Langley Research Center as a research mathematician for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), where she put her mathematics skills to work. She calculated the trajectory for Alan Shepard, the first American in space. Even after NASA began using electronic computers, John Glenn requested that she personally recheck the calculations made by the new electronic computers before his flight aboard Friendship 7 – the mission on which he became the first American to orbit the Earth. She continued to work at NASA until 1986, combining her mathematic talent with electronic computer skills. Her calculations proved critical to the success of the Apollo Moon landing program and the start of the Space Shuttle program.

Johnson, who co-authored twenty-six scientific papers, was the recipient of NASA’s Lunar Spacecraft and Operation’s Group Achievement Award and NASA’s Apollo Group Achievement Award. On 24 November 2015, she received the nation’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, from President Barack H. Obama. She died in 2020, aged 101.