Perhaps she was frustrated at being roadblocked in her desire to become a fully-fledged electrical engineer? She was a disruptive trailblazer who paved a path forward for female electrical engineers of the future. She later went on to become the first woman to be accepted as a full voting member of the AIEE, as well as the first woman to be elected a fellow of the AIEE (1948). She enjoyed her work at AT&T so much that she dropped out of her civil engineering program and managed a group of women Computers during World War I.A group of women computers at the Harvard College Observatory. She returned to GE in 1922 as a salaried electrical engineer, making her the first professionally employed female electrical engineer in the United States.7. The thought of a woman getting a college degree was almost unheard of. This is where Edith Clarke’s epic resume of firsts begins to unfold:Edith Clarke graduated from MIT in 1919 with a Master’s Degree in electrical engineering. In 1954, she received the Society of Women Engineers Achievement Award. 17 others named Edith Clarke are on LinkedIn.
Clarke became an Associate Member in 1923, and in 1948, she was the first woman elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE). Edith Clarke (1883-1959) Every electrical engineer who works in the field of alternating current (AC) systems should be familiar with the Clarke Transformation concept.What not so many engineers know is that Clarke is a (pioneering) woman engineer called Edith, who managed to find a place for her talent in one of the biggest masculine industries in the first half of the 20th century. Career and Works. The Epic Resume of Electrical Engineering Trailblazer Edith ClarkeIt’s challenging to uncover any details about Edith Clarke’s personal life. It’s a mystery. electrical engineer. What were her interests? At the time, transmission lines were getting longer, and with longer lines importance. The Award cited her Edith also made one of her most famous contributions to field of electrical engineering at this time, the Clarke Calculator.This calculator helped to simplify methods for solving power transmission line problems over distances up to 250 miles. This made her the first professionally employed female electrical engineer in the United States. Post MIT, Edith accepted a job as a “computer” for General Electric (GE), and in 1921 went on temporary leave to take a position as a professor of physics at the Constantinople Women’s College in Turkey. Need to control current flow in low voltage applications? Edith Clarke was born on February 10 in 1883 in a small Maryland farming community. After 26 years, Edith left GE in 1947 to teach electrical engineering as a full professor at the University of Texas, Austin, becoming the first female professor of electrical engineering in the United Sates. A whopping 18.8 percent of women were employed outside of the home at the start of the 20th century working as retail clerks, nurses, teachers, and typists. came greater loads and more chances for system instability. However, the deeper you dig into Edith Clarke’s story, the more you start to realize her work and education accomplishments were her life, and they did not come easy. Clarke wrote and published a great deal. With her inspiration set, Edith left AT&T in 1918 and studied electrical engineering at MIT. What were her interests? James Brittain writes that "Edith Clarke's engineering career had as its central theme the development and dissemination of mathematical methods that served to simplify and reduce the time spent in laborious calculations in solving problems in the design and … In 1918, Edith Clarke joined Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Six years later, Edith made the life-changing decision to use the little inheritance money she received to study mathematics and astronomy at Vassar College. During this time Edith also accepted a job at AT&T as a Human Computer. It takes true determination to push beyond the established status quo on a path of your own. Here she studied mathematics and astronomy and graduated with the highest honors.After graduating from Vassar, Edith went on to teach math and physics at a private girls school in San Francisco and at Marshall College in West Virginia. dissemination of mathematical methods that tended to simplify and reduce the time opportunity.

She attended numerous colleges including Vassar (1908) and MIT (1919) and had a variety of jobs with the longest at General Electric 1919-1945. She completely disrupted societal expectations in a day and age where women were expected to uphold traditional roles at home. One of nine children, both her parents died by the time she was just 12 years old. In 1954, she received a On February 8, 1926, as the first woman to deliver a paper at the American Institute of Electrical Engineers' (AIEE) annual meeting, she showed the use of hyperbolic functions for calculating the maximum power that a line could carry without instability.In 1943, Edith Clarke wrote an influential textbook in the field of In 1947, she joined the faculty of the Electrical Engineering Department at the Edith Clarke was the first female engineer to achieve professional standing in Tau Beta Pi.In 2015, Clarke was posthumously inducted into the Edith wasn’t one to be held back by her early struggles. Her father passed away at the age of 7 and her mother died soon after when Edith turned 12. being made to develop electromechanical aids to problem solving.

But at the end of her first year, a summer job as a “computer assistant” assigned to solve mathematical equations at AT&T in New York proved so interesting, she wound up staying for six years. See the complete profile on LinkedIn and … Six years later, Edith made the life-changing decision to use the little inheritance money she received to study mathematics and 1. Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, IEEE).

system instability.

Edith applied a mathematical technique called the method of symmetrical components
During this time women were confined to the home and expected to uphold traditional roles as a wife and mother.