Celebrating the women researchers of Bell Labs

Have you ever considered why the 9 Nobel Prize winners from Bell Labs are all men? Only in recent history were women accepted in the same high-level scientific and technical fields traditionally dominated by men. This was no different at Bell Labs, where during the early years all the technical staff were men. Bell Labs was formed in 1925, and yet the first woman joined the technical staff only in the early 1940s; the wartime economy demanded a larger labor force and women began to fill the jobs left by men, assuming increasingly vital roles at Bell Labs and similar research institutions. These women began in administrative and assistant roles, then worked directly on computations and experiments, and by the mid-20th century they occupied research positions across multiple Bell Labs departments.

Today, women make up almost half of the workforce in the U.S., but only 24% of STEM jobs are held by women. There is still a lot of progress to be made on this front, but first, let’s celebrate the work of a few Bell Labs women who serve as inspirations for the rising population of future women researchers.

Human computers: The invisible brain of Bell Labs

Before the time of inexpensive electronic computation, research institutions depended on humans to crunch the big numbers. This was a popular job for women, and thus, many of the complex computations at Bell Labs were performed by human computers who were mainly women. Betty Shannon, one such human computer at Bell Labs, also happened to be the wife of celebrated researcher Claude Shannon. She assisted her husband by editing many of his computations and papers that are so highly revered today.

Elizabeth A. Wood: First woman researcher at Bell Labs

Who is she and what is she known for? 
Elizabeth (Betty) Wood was a graduate of Barnard College and Bryn Mawr College, where she received her Ph.D. in geology. She worked as a professor and research assistant before joining the technical staff of Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1943, the first woman to do so. A pioneer in crystallography, Wood worked in the Physical Research Department and maintained an active crystallographic program for 24 years. Her work involved investigating crystal growth, structures, and their conductive and magnetic properties. Through these experiments, she developed new superconductors via the application of electric fields and altering material phases.

What is the impact? 
Wood’s work was instrumental in the development of superconductors and solid-state lasers. Her expertise and presence were so valued at Bell Labs that she was honored as a participant in the first Picturephone call in 1964 between Lady Bird Johnson and herself. She published several texts on physics and crystallography, both technical and non-technical. She has been on the boards of several national societies and organizations and was a founding member of the American Crystallographic Association. She became its first female president in 1957.

Erna Schneider Hoover: Mother of electronic switching

Who is she and what is she known for? 
Erna Schneider Hoover graduated from Wellesley College and Yale University, where she received her Ph.D. in Logics and Philosophy of Science. Her husband was already working at Bell Labs when Hoover joined the team in 1953. Initially, Hoover worked on Picturephone technology and overseas dialing. She is known for key developments to the No. 1 Electronic Switching System (ESS), the first large-scale computerized switching systems in the Bell System. She received one of the first software patents ever issued for stored program control. Hoover first sketched out these groundbreaking ideas while she was in the hospital after giving birth to one of her daughters. She also supervised the control of programs used in the Safeguard Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense System used to protect the U.S. Air Force’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos.

What is the impact? 
Her contribution to the ESS employed symbolic logic and feedback theory to control the frequency of incoming calls to a call center. Her automated system greatly improved the overloading problem of a call center and paved the path for the future of electronic switching. In 1978 she was appointed as head of the operations support department, the first woman to supervise a technical department. In 2008, she was inducted into the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame.

Shirley Ann Jackson: Physicist, advocate and advisor

Who is she and what is she known for? 
Shirley Ann Jackson, a theoretical physicist, was the first African American woman to graduate MIT with a Ph.D. in 1968. In 1976, she joined Bell Labs as a member of the technical staff. Jackson’s work at Bell Labs varied throughout her 15-year tenure. She first joined the Theoretical Physics Department, then the Scattering and Low Energy Physics Research Department, and later the Solid State and Quantum Physics Research Department. Jackson was involved in materials research, theories of charge density waves, and neutrino reactions. Jackson continued to serve as a consultant at Bell Labs on semiconductor theory throughout the early 1990s.

What is the impact? 
Jackson’s research has contributed to the fields of charge density waves in layered compounds. Her work explores the polaronic aspects of two-dimensional electron systems and the channeling of heavy ions in solids and semiconductors. Her expertise has been recognized with several honors and leadership positions. In 1995, Jackson was appointed chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) during President Clinton’s term in office and in 2014, she served on President Barack Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and was co-chair of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board. Her work at the NRC promoted risk management of nuclear plants at both the national and international level. In 1999, Jackson became the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic institute, the first woman and African American to hold this position. In 2012, she became an International fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) and in 2014 was awarded the National Medal of Science. She continues to advocate for underrepresented students achieving higher education.

Cherry Murray: From researcher to federal advisor

Who is she and what is she known for? 
Cherry Murray received her Ph.D. in physics from MIT. She was awarded an IBM Graduate Fellowship and continued her post-graduate and post-doctoral research in ultrahigh-vacuum and surface physics. Murray began at Bell Labs in 1978 as a member of the technical staff in the Physical Research Laboratory and advanced to head of the Solid State and Low Temperature Physics Research Department, head of the Condensed Matter Physics Research Department, head of the Semiconductor Physics Research Department, and director of physical research. She left Bell Labs in 2004 as senior vice president, Physical Sciences and Wireless Research.

What is the impact? 
She is best known for her contributions to condensed matter and solid-state and low-temperature physics, as well as light-scattering techniques that inform surface physics and photonic behaviors. Her scientific achievements are echoed in the development of lab-on-a-chip devices, quantum optics and engineered nanotechnology. Murray was appointed the Director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science in 2015. She served on over 100 scientific advisory committees, including as President of the American Physical Society. In 2014, she was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honor the U.S. can bestow on a scientist, for her contributions to telecommunication development, light-scattering research and leadership roles in STEM.

Elsa Reichmanis: Developing the future material of telecommunications

Who is she and what is she known for? 
Elsa Reichmanis received a Ph.D. in chemistry from Syracuse University and in 1978 joined Bell Labs. Reichmanis, a Bell Labs Fellow, became director of the Materials Research Department and Advanced Materials Integration Research. Reichmanis helped develop new lithographic materials and improved integrated-circuit processing methods. She researched how chemical structure affects materials function, which would ultimately inform the advancement of lithographic materials and VLSI manufacturing.

What is the impact?
Reichmanis’s research in the field of optical and microlithography has greatly enhanced current knowledge on materials manufacturing of electronic devices. She is credited with designing materials that allow for silicon chips to continually decrease in size while also improving in performance. In 2001, she was awarded the Perkin Medal from the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI), the U.S. chemical industry’s highest honor.

Alice White: Materials scientist and Vice President of Bell Labs

Who is she and what is she known for? 
Growing up in a family full of physicists, Alice White had a passion for science from a young age. She attended Middlebury College and majored in physics. During the summers she interned at Bell Labs studying liquid crystallography and helium. She eventually received a fellowship from Bell Labs to attend Harvard where she received a Ph.D. in physics. White returned to Bell Labs and was involved in research across many fields investigating fabrication and materials science. Specifically, she focused on electronic transport in metal wires at low temperature and the structure of silicon wafers. She served as Chief Scientist as well as Vice President of Bell Laboratories until 2013.

What is the impact?
White’s discovery of mesotaxy, the implantation and growth of metal in silicon wafers was instrumental in the development of small electronic devices. In addition, her work in “silicon optical bench” technology has been used in laser and detector technology and optical waveguide interconnects. She continues to be an advocate for underrepresented groups to pursue physics.

Laurie Spiegel: Transforming computers into composers

Who is she and what is she known for? 
Laurie Spiegel was a pioneer in computer graphics and computer music and could be considered the embodiment of the A (Arts) in STEAM. Spiegel studied composition at The Julliard School in New York and then received her MA in music composition at Brooklyn College. In 1973, she joined Bell Labs to develop computer music. At Bell Labs she developed algorithmic logic in compositions and worked on synthesizers and intelligent computer software for music generation. Using the newly developed C language, she worked on the GROOVE system, a hybrid computer-controlled analog system to create early computer music, and on the Alles Machine (Alice), considered to be the first true additive or real-time synthesizer.

What is the impact? 
Her explorations at Bell Labs were cutting-edge in the fields of computer graphics and composition. She later went on to create Music Mouse – The Intelligent Instrument, an algorithmic music composition software. Her composition for the realization of Johannes Kepler’s “Harmonices Mundi” was the opening track of the “Sounds of Earth” album sent aboard the Voyager spacecraft in 1977. Her works have been featured in movie soundtracks.

Ingrid Daubechies: Developing wavelet theory

Who is she and what is she known for? 
Ingrid Daubechies received her bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in physics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, in Brussels. In 1987 she joined the technical staff at the Mathematics Research Center at Bell Labs. She is most known for the orthogonal Daubechies wavelet and the biorthogonal Cohen-Daubechies-Feauveau wavelet. Wavelets are brief sections of waves, and their mathematical description plays an important role in digital signal processing. While at Bell Labs, Ingrid developed a formulation of compactly supported continuous wavelets, which require minimal amounts of processing in their use. This resulted in significantly improved signal processing capabilities.

What is the impact? 
Wavelets are mathematical building blocks that allow complicated things to be decomposed in a multiscale fashion. Wavelets in medical imaging applications, for example, reduce patients’ exposure to radiation. In the U.S., the FBI uses them for encoding digitized fingerprints. A wavelet from the Cohen-Daubechies-Feauveau family of wavelets is used in the JPEG 2000 image-compression standard. Wavelets also are used in art restoration and forgery detection. Daubechies was elevated to IEEE Fellow in 1999 “for contributions to the theory of wavelets” and she also received the 2011 IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal “for pioneering contributions to the theory and applications of wavelets and filter banks.” In 2012, King Albert of Belgium granted her the title of baroness.

The Future

The legacies of these women are not always acknowledged in the most obvious ways. Even as the number of women in STEM and STEAM continues to rise, it is important to acknowledge those who paved the way. The significant impacts of their research and discoveries are felt in the technologies we use every day and in the invisible systems that connect our world.

Feature image: Cherry Murray

Written by Louise Lobello