Doctor Betsy Ancker-Johnson

Being elected to the National Academy of Engineering or NAE is one of the highest honor that can be given to an engineer. In 1965, Lillian Gilbreth became the first woman engineer elected to the NAE. In 1973, Grace Hopper became the second woman engineer elected. Mildred Dresselhaus was the third woman engineer elected in 1974. Betsy Ancker-Johnson was the fourth woman engineer elected to the NAE in 1975. To date, 2,330 male engineers have been elected to the NAE since 1964 compared to the only 37 women engineers that have been elected.

Betsy Ancker-Johnson Education

Betsy Ancker-Johnson attended Wellesley College and later a graduate school in Germany. In 1953, She received her Ph.D. in physics. It was always her dream to be a physicist.

Betsy Ancker-Johnson Achievements

According to the University of California Physics Department, "Betsy Ancker-Johnson's early contributions to the study of the instabilities that can occur in plasmas in solids, such as pinching (1963) and oscillatory behavior (1962), culminated in Betsy Ancker-Johnson's observation of microwave emission from an electron-hole plasma (1967). The latter is the first observation of microwave emission without the presence of an external field, but initiated only by the application of an external electric field. These non-equilibrium processes in solid state plasmas occur at higher plasma density than are usually studied in dilute gaseous plasmas."

Betsy Ancker-Johnson Patents

Patents Issued To Betsy Ancker-Johnson
U.S. patent #3,287,659 - issued on 11/22/1966 for 'Signal Generators'