Page 67 - World Airnews Magazine November 2020

WOMEN IN
AVIATION
One of these, math professor George Thomas, author of the MIT had been casting about for ways to increase the number of
famous textbook, “Thomas’ Calculus,” brought cookies to sustain women while at the same time using an irrelevant barrier. “People
her during a test. Another, Holt Ashley, an aeronautical engineering in the administration were saying, ‘We have to do more advertising
professor known for his patience and humour, first suggested to we have to do more searching” for women students, Widnall said.
Widnall that she pursue an advanced degree - and she readily “And I said, ‘Why are we searching? The women we should admit
agreed. are the women who have applied.’”
By then, Widnall already knew what she would study. “I love The idea was effective. A year later, she said, “the number of
airplanes. There was never an issue about what I was going to women admitted rose from 26 percent to 38 percent.”
choose,” she said. Much later in her career, she would read reports Not satisfied to stop at undergrad admissions, Widnall turned
suggesting many women entering science and engineering chose her attention to graduate applicants.
fields where they believe they can make the biggest contribution. Daniel Hastings, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Education
By her example, it was true. Less than a decade into her career and head of the department of aeronautics and astronautics,
she’d already conducted research that had an impact in aeronau- remembered Widnall’s presence at a meeting of faculty for
tics, one that every air traveller ought to appreciate. admissions in the early 1990s. When all the candidates had been
After obtaining her PhD in 1964, Widnall was hired as the considered, the applications sat on the table, divided into stacks of
first female faculty member in the MIT School of Engineering, yes, no, and waitlist. Then Widnall summarized the proceedings,
where she established her research program with a focus on noting that all of the women had been waitlisted while they
fluid dynamics. Eventually, she published research that analyzed accepted many of the men.
vortices trailing from the wing tips of aircraft. This work was used “Every time there was a question, ‘Is this candidate capable?’
to gauge the hazards of wake turbulence. the men were given the benefit of the doubt and the women were
It was no small matter, as some of the largest commercial not. The women went to the waitlist pile,” said Hastings. “We felt
aircraft were taking to the skies, the Lockheed L10-11, the DC-10 collectively ashamed and we went back to correct that.”
and the jumbo jet that started it all, the 400 plus seat Boeing 747. Hasting’s summary was simple. “Wise people are the backbone
Turbulence from the wing vortices of these enormous airplanes of this place.”
could and sometimes did upset the flight of airplanes nearby.
But as Widnall’s MIT colleague Dave Darmofal, the Jerome C. LEADERSHIP ON A NATIONAL STAGE
Hunsaker Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, notes, there
was a smaller phenomenon in Widnall’s research that had even Her reputation for wise sensibility was not confined within MIT’s
larger applications for wing, engine and rocket design. walls. In 1993, U.S. President Bill Clinton cited Widnall’s scientific
“Yes, she made an impact in understanding the wing tip vortex achievements when he nominated her to become secretary of the
with the obvious aviation application, but the fundamental US air force.
understanding of the Widnall instability you see in many more Prior to the nomination, Widnall had served on several air force
situations,” Darmofal said. “With any kind of fluid motion this advisory boards and had served as chair of the air force academy’s
instability plays a role.” board of visitors in the 1980s.
Widnall also kept an analytical eye on how MIT and other Accepting Clinton’s nomination, Continued on
academic institutions could contribute their research expertise to she became the first woman to next page
government policy. Transportation was evolving in the seventies. lead a branch of the US military.
America’s interstate highway system was brand new, but the
increasing emphasis on cars had many environmental and social
consequences, not all of them positive. Could academia help
government think through these issues?
Widnall got the chance to find out when fellow engineering
professor Robert Cannon asked her to be the first director
of the office of university research for the US department of
transportation.
In the early seventies, Widnall oversaw the distribution of (US)
$6.5 million, (or (US) $31 million in 2020 dollars) for university
research projects from Alaska to Atlanta.
Around this same time, Widnall was thinking about improving
outcomes for MIT students who came to the Institute without
strong backgrounds in engineering, and who ultimately missed
out on careers in this area. She teamed up with MIT physicist and
electrical engineer Mildred “Millie” Dresselhaus to spearhead a
new course for first-year MIT students that introduced avenues
for career advancement in various engineering fields.
“We had hoped for 15 students per semester, but we got over
100,” Widnall recalled in 2017.
“Many MIT women and minority students took the course, and
quite a few decided to major in engineering.”
Later, Widnall saw how MIT’s own research provided a way
through the persistent gender imbalance in admissions.
In the 1980s, as chair of MIT’s admission committee, she
proposed a simple solution: accept more of the women who apply
to MIT. Her proposal relied on the research of then-engineering
professor Art Smith. He had discovered that the scholastic
aptitude tests under-predict the actual academic performance
of women students - at least as far as the math scores were
concerned. The proposal, based on the data, was to add a small Portrait of US secretary of the air force Sheila
percentage to their SAT score. Widnall Photo credit US air force

World Airnews | November Extra 2020
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