List of Achievements Suitable for Milestones featuring Women

From IEEE Milestones Wiki

A suggestive list of technical achievements by women in IEEE's fields of interest which might be suitable for proposal as milestones. The Region number where the achievement took place is shown. This is by no means all of them, nor does an appearance on this list guarantee approval.  The technical area/society given is for suggestion only; it does not restrict the achievement to that society. Multiple societies may cosponsor milestone proposals. Please feel free to suggest others to ieee-history@ieee.org  -- or even better -- propose an achievement as a milestone.  Please consult the Milestone Guidelines for more information on the milestone process.

Date Milestone Associated woman Location IEEE Region Remarks
1748 Publication of Analytical Institutions Maria Agnesi Italy 8
1840 Theoretical computer programming Ada Augusta London, England 8
1881 First meeting of American Association of University Women Ellen Swallow Richards Boston, MA 1
1886 Electric Automatic Dishwasher Josephine Cochrane Shelbyville, IL 3 US Patent #355139A
1893 First woman to earn degree in EE Bertha Lamme Ohio State University 2
1895 Explanation of electric arc Hertha Ayrton London, UK 8 Also first woman to read a paper before the Royal Society; first woman member of the IEE (2nd was in 1958); first woman to win Hughes Medal (2nd was in 2018, and only two to date; first paper was in The Electrician; published her book in 1902
1898 Development of theory of radioactivity Marie Skłodowska Curie Paris, France 8 Also later invented portable xray machine
1912 Electric water purifier Ada Henry Van Pelt Los Angeles, CA 6 US Patent #1020001A
1913 All-metal poultry-cooling rack Mary Engle Pennington Pennsylvania 2
1919 First Women's Engineering Society Meeting Laura Annie Willson, Rachel Parsons, Margaret, Lady Moir Hertfordshire, UK 8
1919 First successful exhaust muffler for airplane engines Eldorado Jones Moline, IL 4 Is this an IEEE achievement?
1921 Graphical Calculator for power transmission computations Edith Clarke GE Laboratory, Schenectady, NY 1
1921 Microelectrode Ida Henrietta Hyde University of Kansas 5
1925 Miniature pH electrode Phyllis Margaret Tookey Kerridge London, UK 8
1932 Movie and theater incandescent bulb with maneuverability, reliability and luminosity Maude Adams GE Laboratory Schenectady 1 Patents: 1,884,957 and 1,963,949
1935 Non-reflective coating for glass Katherine Burr Blodgett GE Laboratory, Schenectady, NY 1 Is this an IEEE event? She was a chemist, but it had electronic applications; also what was happening at GE in 1930s that Clarke and Blodgett were both there?
1936 Discovery of ring nebulae in Milky Way Muriel Mussells Seyfert Harvard 1
1939 Solar-powered water desalination machine Maria Telkes MIT 1 This was not an electronic device, but she went on to become an important figure in early solar power
1945 Sapphire gramophone stylus Marie Killick London, UK 8
1949 "Mechanical Encyclopedia" Ángela Ruiz Robles Galicia, Spain 8 Mechanical, but it is an information device
1950 First SWE Meeting Beatrice Hicks Cooper Union's Green Engineering Camp 1
1953 Hot die stamp method to create printed circuits Elise Frances Harmon Aerovox Corporation, New Bedford, MA 1 US Patent #2656570A
1954 Stored program control for telephone exchanges Erna Schneider Hoover Bell Labs, NJ 1
1959 Oramics drawn sound Daphne Oram Kent, UK 8
1960 Brain Research Institute Data Processing Laboratory Thelma Estrin Los Angeles 6
1966 First CCTV-based security system Marie Van Brittan Brown Queens, NYC 1 U.S. Patent 3,482,037
1966 Gigacycle signal generator Betsy Ancker-Johnson Boeing Science Research Lab, Seattle, WA 6 U.S. Patent #3,287,659
1967 Hydrazine resistojet satellite propulsion system Yvonne Brill RCA Lab, Princeton, NJ 1 Is this an IEEE achievement? She was a chemist, but important for satellites
1968 Switched-On Bach Wendy Carlos New York 1
1969 Apollo flight software Margaret Hamilton Cambridge, MA 1
1969 Publication of Computer Science: A First Course Alexandra Illmer Forsythe New York 1
1970 Contributions to radio science in the polar regions Irene Peden Antarctica ?
1977 First microelectronic multi-channel cochlear implant Ingeborg J. Hochmair-Desoyer Vienna, Austria 8 With husband Erwin Hochmair
1978 "Illusion Transmitter" Valerie Thomas NASA (Goddard?) 2 US Patent #4229761A
1978 General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Laboratory Ruzena Bajcsy University of Pennsylvania 2
1980 Graphical adventure games Roberta Williams Simi Valley, CA 6
1980 VLSI Lynn Conway Xerox PARC 6
1984 "Blissymbol Printer" (for severely handicapped individuals) Rachel Zimmerman Brachman London, Ontario 7
1985 Spanning Tree Protocol Radia Perlman DEC, Maynard, MA 1 This is the basis of IEEE Standard 802.1d!
1986 Daubechies Wavelets Ingrid Daubechies New York 1
1986 Music Mouse composition software Laurie Spiegel New York 1
1986 Laser phaco ultrasound and laser method and apparatus for removing cataract lenses Patricia Bath New York 1 Patents: 6,544,254 B1; 5,843,071; 5,919,186; 6,083,192
1986 Precise modelling of Earth's shape Gladys West Dahlgren, VA 2
1987 Optical tweezers and their application to biological systems Donna Stricklan Bell Labs, New Jersey Coast Section 1 with Arthur Ashkin and Gérard Mourou
1988 Silicon retina Misha Mahowald CalTech 6
1989 Holographic video system Mary Lou Jepsen MIT Media Lab 1 Later co-invented "One Laptop per Child" $100 computer
1992 Prediction of band structures of carbon nanotubes Mildred Dresselhaus MIT 1
1992 Semiconductor saturable absorber mirror Ursula Keller Switzerland 8
1995 Rescue and Disaster Recovery Robots Robin Murphy Colorado School of Mines, Univ S. Florida 5