(1900 – 1996)

Chemist, engineer. ‘Mother of the Solar Home’, the ‘Sun Queen’ and ‘world’s most famous woman inventor in solar energy’.

Between 1939 and 1953 she was at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a research associate in metallurgy. It was at MIT that she became known for her research in solar energy. The first experimental house using solar heating was built under her supervision in 1948. She designed a number of dwellings that harness solar energy and obtained approximately 20 patents.

Invented: the solar oven, distillation equipment, portable desalination of seawater on life rafts, heat storage, cold storage.