This Women’s History Month, we’re highlighting four trailblazing women whose work has advanced renewable energy and energy efficiency. These inspiring women, from engineers to scientists, helped lay the path for Sempra and its 公司家族 to advance electrification and promote energy diversification, 弹性 and affordable access to 清洁形式 的能量.
伊迪丝·克拉克
“There is no demand for women engineers, 像这样, as there are for women doctors; but there’s always a demand for anyone who can do a good piece of work.”
一个拥有许多第一的女人, Clarke was the first woman to earn her master’s in electrical engineering from MIT in 1919, and later became the first female electrical engineer in the United States in 1922, employed by General Electric. She invented the Clarke Calculator, which helped solve electric power transmission line problems. This tool became the first step toward “智能电网” technology we know today. Clarke later became the first professor of electrical engineering at the University of 德州 in Austin and was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) in 2015.
玛丽亚Telkes
“It is the things supposed to be impossible that interest me. I like to do things they say cannot be done.”
玛丽亚Telkes, nicknamed as The Sun Queen, was a Hungarian-born American physical chemist and biophysicist. In 1924, she moved to Ohio and joined the Cleveland Clinic Foundation as a biophysicist where she developed a photoelectric device to measure brain waves. 二战期间, Telkes developed a solar-powered water desalination machine which made seawater drinkable for U.S. 士兵. Telkes later created a solar-powered oven and worked with the U.S. 能源部 to create the first solar-powered home in 1980.
Lei程
“With so much intense research effort and huge capital investment in research and development [for solid-state batteries], I believe we will get there.”
Dr. Cheng is a chemist and energy storage researcher for Argonne National Laboratory and the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR). Passionate about working toward a cleaner energy future, Cheng helped create the Electrolyte Genome database, which helps scientists identify and select molecules suitable for next-generation 电池技术. Her research at Argonne National Laboratory is a game-changer to electrifying the transportation sector and integrating renewable energy onto the electric grid. Dr. Cheng won the Midwest Energy 新闻’ 40 under 40 award in 2018, which recognizes emerging leaders in the Midwest for their 贡献 to the United States’ clean energy economy.
榛子R. 奥利里
“In the public sector I’ve regulated industry broadly. 在私营部门, I’ve been forced to live with those regulations and, perhaps more importantly, I’ve seen how those regulations — if not carefully crafted and balanced — can impact jobs and lives and economies of people who expected and hoped for better from their government.”
The honorable Hazel 奥利里 was the first female and the first African American U.S. 能源部长. During her time as the 能源部长, 奥利里 pushed for more 能源部 funding for renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies. 奥利里 also started the Samuel P. Massie Chair of Excellence Professorship in Environmental Disciplines which benefited nine historically black colleges and universities. In 2004, she became president of Fisk University.
References for this article include information posted to the websites of the U.S. 能源部, Edison Electric Institute, National Argonne National Library, The HistoryMakers and Edison Tech Center.
