Impressive Humans

Meet the First 2 Black Women To Be Inducted Into The National Inventors Hall Of Fame

In this last week of Black History Month, I am featuring these two remarkable, Impressive Human women. It is because of them and for them that history is being rewritten and giving voice to the voiceless. It is also to inspire. To continue to learn new things of interest keeps us engaged in truth and in the world around us. We have all benefitted by their brilliance. Read their stories and be inspired by those who make our lives easier in today’s world.

Marian Rogers Croak is a Vice President of Engineering at Google. She was previously the Senior Vice President of Research and Development at AT&T.^[1] She holds more than 200 patents.^[2] She was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame in 2013.^[2] In 2022, Croak was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for her patent regarding VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Technology.^[3] She is one of the first two Black women to receive that honor, along with Patricia Bath.^[4] Her invention allows users to make calls over the internet instead of a phone line. Today, the widespread use of VoIP technology is vital for remote work and conferencing.

• Marian Croak is behind the tech that enables us to talk on FaceTime, Zoom, and other apps that connect friends, family and others around the globe.
• Marian Croak from the Great Class of 1977 holds the patent for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which helps us make calls over the internet instead of a phone line.
• Marian Croak has spent her life inventing. After graduating from #princetonuniversity and earning her Ph.D. from #uscedu, she worked at Bell Labs-Nokia in New Jersey, creating technologies “in service of humanity.” She went on to work for AT&T and is now vice president of engineering at Google.
• In 2022, Marian, owner of 200+ U.S. patents, was one of the first two Black women to be inducted to the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Among her inventions is the text-to-donate function that her team helped create in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which has helped to raise millions of dollars since its inception in 2005.
• Croak also leads the Research Center for Responsible AI and Human Centered Technology at Google, which “ensures that Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning positively impacts users and the world, particularly marginalized communities.”
• Content/photo credit Princeton University Instagram, courtesy of the Inventors Hall of Fame. #BlackHistoryMonth

Bath was a pioneering ophthalmologist whose work reshaped cataract surgery

Bath, who died in 2019 at age 76, was no stranger to making history.

She is recognized as the first Black female physician to receive a medical patent, according to the NIHF, the first Black woman to complete a residency in ophthalmology at New York University and the first woman to chair an ophthalmology residency program in the U.S. (the King-Drew-UCLA Ophthalmology Residency Program), to name just a few of her accolades.

Bath invented laserphaco, a minimally invasive device and technique that performs all steps of cataract removal, from making the incision to destroying the lens to vacuuming out the fractured pieces.