Беатрис Хикс: Первопроходец американской инженерной профессии

Early woman engineer from the United States

Beatrice Alice Hicks (January 2, 1919 October 21, 1979) was an American engineer, the first woman engineer to be hired by Western Electric, and both co founder and first president of the Society of Women Engineers. Despite entering the field at a time where engineering was seen as an inappropriate career for a woman, Hicks held a variety of leadership positions and eventually became the owner of an engineering firm. During her time there, Hicks developed a gas density switch that would be used in the U. S. space program, including the Apollo Moon landing missions.

Beatrice Alice Hicks was born in 1919 in Orange, New Jersey, to Florence Benedict and William Lux Hicks, a chemical engineer. Hicks decided at an early age that she wished to be an engineer. While her parents neither supported nor opposed Hicks' desired career path, some of her teachers and classmates tried to discourage her from becoming an engineer, viewing it as a socially unacceptable role for a woman. She graduated from Orange High School in 1935 and received a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Newark College of Engineering (now New Jersey Institute of Technology) in 1939, During college, Hicks worked in the treasury office of an Abercrombie & Fitch store as a telephone operator, and in the university's library. While at Newark Controls Hicks pursued a master's degree in physics, which she received in 1949 from the Stevens Institute of Technology. In 1960 Hicks and her husband were selected by the National Society of Professional Engineers for a month long research and speaking tour of South America, which focused on international cooperation between American and South American engineers. She believed that while female engineers would initially be closely watched, they would also be quickly accepted.

In 1948 Hicks married fellow engineer Rodney Duane Chipp (d. 1966) who held two director level engineering positions before starting a consulting firm. Hicks received honorary doctorates from Hobart and William Smith College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Stevens Institute of Technology, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. She was the first female recipient of an honorary doctorate from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She was a member of both the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.