Dorothy M. Hoffman (September 12, 1915 – December 13, 1996) was an American

chemical engineer A chemical engineer is a professional equipped with the knowledge of chemistry and other basic sciences who works principally in the chemical industry to convert basic raw materials into a variety of Product (chemistry), products and deals with ...

. In 1974 she became the first woman to be elected president of

American Vacuum Society AVS: Science and Technology of Materials, Interfaces, and Processing (formally the American Vacuum Society, Inc.) is a professional and scientific society founded in 1953 as a committee on vacuum technology. The AVS supports networking among its ...

and the first woman to serve as president of any scientific society in the USA.

Early life

She was born in New York City and attended

City University of New York The City University of New York (CUNY, pronounced , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven ...

. Trained as a concert pianist, she performed at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. Dorothy Hoffman got her B.S. in chemical engineering from

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (; RPI) is a private university, private research university in Troy, New York, United States. It is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world and the Western Hemisphere. It was establishe ...

in 1947 and an MS in chemical engineering from

Bucknell University Bucknell University is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal-arts college in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1846 as the University at Lewisburg, it now consists of the College of Arts a ...

in 1948.

Career

Hoffman's technical expertise was in

thin-film A thin film is a layer of materials ranging from fractions of a nanometer (monolayer) to several micrometers in thickness. The controlled synthesis of materials as thin films (a process referred to as deposition) is a fundamental step in many a ...

technology. Her first technical job was at General Electric, tasked with discovering what was causing spots on dishes cleaned in Hotpoint dishwashers. She and her husband Earl soon moved to Philadelphia, where she worked for International Resistance Co. as a research engineer before being promoted to head of process development. Hoffman played a significant role in the development of evaporated-metal-film resistors during this time. In 1961 she became the first woman to be invited to a membership in the Engineers' Club of Philadelphia. She joined the

RCA RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghou ...

David Sarnoff Research Laboratory in 1962 as a member of the Technical Staff, working there until her retirement in 1994. At Sarnoff Labs, she was in charge of the Thin Film Technology Service Group which developed evaporative coatings used on

solar cell A solar cell, also known as a photovoltaic cell (PV cell), is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by means of the photovoltaic effect.

s, optical video discs,

kinescope Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program on motion picture film directly through a lens focused on the screen of a video monitor. The process was pioneered during the 1940s ...

parts and optical wave guides. She was awarded the RCA Laboratories Outstanding Achievement Award in 1968 and the Video Disc Achievement Award in 1973. Her teaching seminars, her publications and patents made lasting contributions to advancing the development and implementation of thin film technology. At her retirement in 1990, she was the Head of Thin Film Laboratory at David Sarnoff Research Center in Penns Neck, where she worked for 28 years.

Society of Women Engineers

Dorothy Hoffman was an active member of the

Society of Women Engineers The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) is an international not-for-profit educational and service organization. Founded in 1950 and headquartered in the United States, the Society of Women Engineers is a major advocate for women in engineering and ...

(SWE) at a local and national levels, serving on their board of trustees from 1980 to 1989. She was elected a SWE Fellow in 1984 and provided funding for several SWE scholarships and the development of new career guidance programs in her will.

American Vacuum Society

In 1974 she became the first woman to be elected president of

and the first woman to serve as president of any scientific society in the US. After her retirement, she continued to volunteer at American Vacuum Society. In 1993 she started the effort to put together a reference handbook for vacuum scientists and engineers to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the society. This resulted in publication of the popular "Handbook of Vacuum Science and Technology" by Academic Press, of which she is the lead co-editor. In 2002, the

established the Dorothy M. and Earl S. Hoffman student award "to recognize and encourage excellence in continuing graduate studies in the sciences and technologies of interest to AVS."

References

External links

* http://www2.avs.org/historybook/links/dhoffman.htm * http://philadelphia.swe.org/uploads/2/3/6/6/23664278/hoffman_in_memoriam.pdf

Publications

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hoffman, Dorothy 1915 births 1996 deaths 20th-century American engineers 20th-century American women engineers American chemical engineers American women chemical engineers 20th-century American chemists Fellows of the Society of Women Engineers