Page 66 - World Airnews Magazine November 2020

WOMEN IN
AVIATION

SHEILA WIDNALL: A LIFETIME

EXPLORING THE UNKNOWN

On September 30, the
MIT community came together
to celebrate the career of
Institute Professor Emerita
Sheila Widnall, who recently
retired after spending 64 years
at MIT.
The virtual event featured
remarks from MIT leaders, cur-
rent and former secretaries of
the US Air Force and Widnall’s
faculty colleagues from the
department of aeronautics and
astronautics, who spoke of her
impact at MIT and beyond.
MIT was not only a
springboard for a hungry
young tinkerer who became
a remarkable engineer and a
visionary leader, both at MIT Institute Professor Emerita Sheila Widnall
and on the national stage. Photo: Nina Gallant
Widnall would also become one
of the curious few who make apply to his alma mater, MIT.
MIT their intellectual home for their full adult lives.
Her work in fluid dynamics would have major implications in “Where’s that?” she asked.
aviation and space flight. She would become the first woman to Soon enough, Widnall would discover how the Institute launched
lead a branch of the US military when she was secretary of the Air the intellectually curious, helping them explore the boundary
Force in the 1990s. And her leadership in supporting women in the where the known meets the unknown.
STEM fields, both at MIT and internationally, would blaze trails for
six decades. FROM TACOMA TO CAMBRIDGE
Widnall attributes the fearlessness with which she faced a career
THE CALL TO ADVENTURE in engineering to her parents, Rolland and Genevieve Evans. At
It was a small chunk of uranium, a gift from an uncle who worked a time when women were only a third of the U.S. labour force,
for a mining company that first brought Widnall face to face with Widnall was unique among her friends in having a mother with a
her future. full-time job. Genevieve Evans was a probation officer whose cases
It may seem like an odd choice of present for teenager, but in the sometimes required her to reach back to her earlier professional
1950s when Widnall was in high school in Tacoma, Washington, experience as a social worker.
America was hot for uranium. Hollywood produced two urani- “She worked with families, kids who were accused of violent
um-themed movies: “Uranium Boom” and “Dig That Uranium.” The crimes,” Widnall said with pride. “It was a big deal.”
Atomic Energy Commission was paying between (US) $3,000 and Her father, Rolland Evans, was an insurance salesman. Later in his
(US) $7,000 a ton for the stuff - half the cost of a new home. life, he went back to school to obtain a master’s degree and teach
To Widnall, however, the rock had a more practical purpose. An college-level business. He also taught his daughter self-reliance.
11th grader at Aquinas Academy, a Catholic girls’ school, she had “We worked together on various projects, building things. He
a science project due: “I used it, along with models of atoms, to fixed things and I’d tag along and he’d show me how. I was 20 years
explain radioactive decay,” she told a reporter in 2009. old before I realized you could hire people to do work on your
Her project on the degradation of uranium won first prize at house,” Widnall said
the Tacoma Science Fair, and from there it was on to a national After being accepted to MIT, Widnall arrived on campus in the
competition. She travelled with her science teacher on a two-day, fall of 1956. Of 6,000 students at that time, just two percent were
2,000-mile train trip to Ohio, where Widnall’s life was about to female, including 23 first-years. The women felt isolated, Widnall
change forever. remembers, forced to live in a rowhouse a mile off campus. While
Her project impressed a Tacoma civil engineer, Arthur Anderson she personally experienced few instances of outright sexism, one
SM ’35, SCD ’38. As a businessman he’d developed pre-stressed episode stood out: “When I came to MIT and was introduced to
concrete, which could be used to create curved beams, the kind my freshman advisor, he said “Why are you here?’, Which I took as
you see in monorails like the ones at Walt Disney World. Anderson an insult. I thought, ‘This guy is a jerk.’ But every other advisor was
thought Widnall had a future in science and told her she should supportive.”

World Airnews |November Extra 2020
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