Women’s History Month Exhibit at the NIHF Museum

In honor of Women’s History Month, throughout March the National Inventors Hall of Fame® (NIHF) Museum in partnership with the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) will display a panel exhibit highlighting four influential female inventors.

Located in the atrium of the United States Patent and Trademark Office headquarters, this exhibit displays the accomplishments of NIHF Inductees whose contributions helped move society forward.

Read below to learn more about the featured women inventors in our exhibit!

Mária Telkes, 2012 NIHF Inductee and SWE Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

Mária Telkes spent her career studying and applying the power of solar energy. As a pioneer in her field, she helped to develop one of the first successful solar ovens and contributed to the Dover Sun House, an experimental home powered by solar energy. Given the nickname “Sun Queen” for her many contributions to the field of solar energy, Telkes earned 27 patents over the span of her long and impressive career. 

Edith Clarke, 2015 NIHF Inductee and SWE Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

Edith Clarke is best known for inventing the graphical calculator that simplified the calculations necessary to determine the electrical characteristics of long electrical transmission lines. Because computers during Clarke’s lifetime were limited in their capabilities, the creation of a graphical calculator significantly streamlined the work of electrical engineers. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, Clarke’s ability to gather data about the power grid contributed to the development of “smart grid” technology.

Barbara Liskov, 2012 NIHF Inductee and SWE Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

Barbara Liskov is a pioneer in the design of computer programming languages.  She designed CLU, an object-oriented programming language, and Argus, a distributed programming language. Both CLU and Argus contributed to the creation of some of the most widely used coding languages today, including Ada, Java, C++ and C#, which are used to write software applications for personal computers, the internet, and a wide range of financial, medical, consumer and business applications.

Jacqueline Quinn, 2018 NIHF Inductee and SWE Space Coast SectionTechnical Achievement Award Winner

Jackie Quinn co-invented an environmentally safe clean-up technology called emulsified zero-valent iron (EZVI). EZVI acts like a sponge, pulling contaminants from polluted groundwater into an emulsion, where the zer0-valent iron breaks down the contaminants into harmless byproducts. This environmentally friendly solution eliminates the need to unearth contaminated water and soil, produces less toxic and more biodegradable byproducts, and is cost effective.

Join NIHF in Celebrating Women’s History Month

Thank you for joining us in celebrating Women’s History Month by recognizing the accomplishments of influential women inventors who have improved the lives of people everywhere.

We invite you to see our Women’s History Month panel exhibit in person, by visiting our museum in Alexandria, Virginia.