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← Engineering Education "Today in History" Blog: Polyethylene is discovered Engineering Education "Today in History" Blog: Construction of the Eiffel Tower →

Engineering Education "Today in History" Blog: Amelia Earhart crosses the Atlantic

by Alice AgoginogravatarcloseAuthor: Alice Agogino Name: Alice Agogino
Email: agogino@berkeley.edu
Site: http://www.me.berkeley.edu/faculty/agogino/
About: Alice M. Agogino is the Roscoe and Elizabeth Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering and is affiliated faculty at the Haas School of Business in their Operations and Information Technology Management Group. Her research interests include: community-based design; sustainable engineering; intelligent learning systems; information retrieval and data mining; multiobjective and strategic product design; nonlinear optimization; probabilistic modeling; intelligent control and manufacturing; sensor validation, fusion and diagnostics; wireless sensor networks; multimedia and computer-aided design; design databases; design theory and methods; MEMS/NEMS synthesis and computer-aided design; artificial intelligence and decision and expert systems; and gender/ethnic equity. She has served in a number of administrative positions at UC Berkeley, including Chair of the Faculty Senate, Associate Dean of Engineering and Faculty Assistant to the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost in Educational Development and Technology. Prof. Agogino also served as Director for Synthesis, an NSF-sponsored coalition of eight universities with the goal of reforming undergraduate engineering education, and continues as PI for the NEEDS (www.needs.org) and SMETE.ORG digital libraries of courseware in science, mathematics, engineering and technology. Prof. Agogino received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Mexico (1975), M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering (1978) from the University of California at Berkeley and Ph.D. from the Department of Engineering-Economic Systems at Stanford University (1984). Prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley, she worked in industry for Dow Chemical, General Electric and SRI International. She has authored over 150 scholarly publications; has won numerous teaching, best paper and research awards; and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). At NAE she served on the Committee on Engineering Education, working on the Technologically Speaking and the Engineer 2020 projects. She is currently a member of the National Research Council's Board on Education and the Women in Academic Science Engineering Committee. She has supervised 66 MS projects/theses, 26 doctoral dissertations and numerous undergraduate researchers.See Authors Posts (122)
· March 30th, 2008 · Add a Comment

Amelia Earhart image
Photo of Amelia Earhart photo of Amelia Earhart
Photo of Amelia Earhart
Photo of Amelia Earhart clinbing into her plane

Today in History - April 6, 1938 - Amelia Earhart is first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. She was one of the most famous women aviators in history. Earhart worked as a nurse’s aide in a military hospital in Canada during WWI and became a social worker after attending college. She took her first flying lesson on January 3, 1921, and managed to save enough money to buy her first plane soon afterwards. Although not an engineer, Amelia Earhart inspired many of us to go into engineering and to appreciate cutting-edge technologies. Although Amelia Earhart lived in a time when women were rarely associated with technology, she distinguished herself by bettering both women’s and men’s aviation records.

Women's History Month 2008 poster
Photo of 4 women involved with ENIAC Women engineering presidents photo
Poster of Grace Hopper Conference 2008
 

March is Women’s History Month. Below I highlight some of our blogs on women’s contributions to engineering, computer science and entrepreneurship.

Patricia Galloway, first female president of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), blogs on Elsie Eaves - first female engineer in ASCE to be elected as a full member on March 14, 1927.

Lucy Sanders, CEO of the Center for Women in Information Technology blogs on the unveiling of the ENIAC on February 14, 1946, the world’s first digital electronic computer, as well as on the contributions of women in computing.

Jasmina Vujic, Chair of the Nuclear Engineering Department at the University of California at Berkeley, blogs on Lise Meitner and her groundbreaking publication that first introduced the world to nuclear fission on February 11, 1939.

Photo of Sara Breedlove Walker
Photo of Helen Taussig Graphic of Mary Phelps Jacob
 

Chad-Eric Montgommery blogs on two African American women. On March 1, 1864, Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first African American woman to receive a medical degree. Also see the blog on Sara Breedlove Walker, the first self-made millionairess hair product inventions for African American women.

Pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Helen Taussig, was one of the doctors at Johns Hopkins who performed the first open heart surgery on November 29, 1944.

I enjoyed researching the blog for November 13, 1913 – Mary Phelps Jacobs invents modern bra. And also for the one on Dr. Mary Walker, the first female army surgeon to be awarded the Medal of Honor on November 11, 1875.

Beyond Bias and Barriers Logo for Fairer Science

Check out the Engineering Pathway’s many educational resources on women in engineering, women in information technology, women inventors and gender equity. One of my favorite resources is FairerScience, with practical advice on how to develop gender equitable classrooms and practices in math, science and engineering.

For a more indepth analysis of the issues associated with gender equity in our faculties and recommended solutions, read our “most commented” resource - the National Academies’ Beyond Bias and Barriers report. My editorial on the report was published in ASEE Prism, November 2006, vol. 16 (3). We’d love to hear your comments and suggestions as well.

Tags: Aerospace Engineering · Computing · Engineering · General Engineering, Engineering Science

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