Betsy Ancker-Johnson

Born: 1927

Died: 2020

Country of Birth: USA

Nationality: USA

Ethnicity: White

Wellesley College BA Physics 1949; University of Tubingen PhD Physics 1953

""My undergraduate years at Wellesley College, during which I became increasingly fascinated with physics, were idyllic. No professor, either male or female, ever told me a woman can't think analytically. It did happen that some of my MIT and Harvard dates, upon learning of my major and my interest in going to graduate school, dutifully informed me that my chances of finding a husband were nil. I was totally unprepared psychologically for what followed... During my first year of graduate school, what seemed to me like an infinite number of professors, teaching assistants and colleagues, none of whom were women, told me that women can't think analytically and I must therefore, be husband hunting... it seems that a woman in physics must be at least twice as determined as a man with the same competence, in order to achieve as much as he does."(cwp.library.ucla.edu); "But let me tell you what it was like to job-hunt as a new, female Ph.D. in physics... I was in a special subset that employers had decided was not dependable; i.e., a woman will marry and quit, and what is invested in her goes down the drain... This was the worst prejudice I've ever encountered. In graduate school the psychological putdowns were hard to bear, but I was allowed to study. As a job-hunter, I was not being given an opportunity to show I could succeed, and not even being told why the opportunity was being withheld. How can you solve a problem you can't get your teeth into?" (cwp.library.ucla.edu); "I had my first baby as an industrial research physicist, and it was an unnecessarily unpleasant experience. My private life was delved into by half-a-dozen executives in interviews that no one should have to endure... I wasn't even allowed to enter the laboratory building for three months before the birth to hear a talk or get a book out of my private collection without special permission of the laboratory director. In order to understand something of how I felt, a member of the majority would have to have an advanced case of leprosy. [When] my second baby was born... my paycheck stopped eight weeks before expected delivery (a company rule) and resumed six weeks after (a state law). However, no one cared that I went right on working... I must say I thought it a bit perverse, though, when the wife of one of my assistants had a baby a few weeks later and he was given a week's leave with pay." (cwp.library.ucla.edu); "Anyway, to get back, I went then to a public high school in Indianapolis, and that was my first encounter, actually, with problems of having interests that weren’t canonical, that weren’t culturally accepted, [Laugh] let’s say. Because, in junior high school I announced that I wanted to take shop instead of sewing and cooking, and that caused a real riot, I recall. [Laugh] The principal was an elderly lady who absolutely was outraged anyway with antics that I had performed earlier, and this was the last straw. [Laugh] I spent a lot of time in her office and a lot of time in the cloak room, especially during the fourth grade. But, I had to take cooking, and I had to take sewing, and I’m ashamed to say that I think I made life miserable for the teacher." (aip.org); “Work hard—no one owes you a living.” (americanbar.org); "

— Betsy Ancker-Johnson

Field of Study: Plasma Physics; Engineer

Institution/Corporation: UC Berkeley; Sylvania Electric Products; David Sarnoff Research Center at Radio corporation of America (RCA); University of Washington; Boeing Science Research Labs; Bell Labs; Argonne National Labs; General Motors

Degrees & Memberships: Honorary Degrees: NY Polytechnic Institute (1979); USC (1984); Bates College (1989); Member: National Academy of engineering (1975); Phi Beta Kappa; American Physical Society; Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers; Society of Automotive Engineers; Sigma Xi; Intervarsity Christian Fellowship; American Association for the Advancement of Science

Awards: 2024 Automotive Hall of Fame; Performance Excellence Award, Boeing Co; 1976 Award of Excellence, Carborundum Co; 1986 Chairman's Award, American Association of Engineering Societies

Achievements: 1966 invented improved signal generator; known for her research into instabilities that can occur in plasmas in solids and for her invention of a gigacycle range signal generator using semiconductor materials in magnetic and electric fields