Lisa Seacat DeLuca is an American inventor and engineer.
Lisa Seacat DeLuca grew up in Bozeman, Montana. [1] She showed interest in inventing in her childhood, prototyping an umbrella that extended to the ground. [1] Growing up, DeLuca's role model was her aunt Dot Richardson, a two-time gold medal winner for softball at the Olympics. [2]
DeLuca received a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University, and furthered her education with a Master of Science in Technology Commercialization from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business. [3]
DeLuca has directed the Watson Internet of Things division at IBM since 2017, primarily focusing on digitizing assets for the digital twin. [3] She joined the company in 2005 and filed her first patent in 2006, aiming to improve the output console for Java code. [2] DeLuca now holds more than 500 patents in the field of software programming, making her the most prolific female inventor at IBM. [4] [5]
As recognition for her efforts, DeLuca was named one of the Most Influential Women in IoT in 2016, one of MIT Technology Review's 2015 list of 35 Innovators under 35, and one of Fast Company’s 2015 list of 100 Most Creative People in Business. [5] DeLuca has also spoken at a conference about the barriers women and minorities face when entering STEM fields, stressing the importance of removing bias in STEM education and extracurriculars, as well as supporting equal pay, maternity leave, and childcare in the workplace. [3]
Additionally, DeLuca has written two children's books, supported by a $14,000 Kickstarter campaign for their production. [3] She attributes her inspiration to her twin children and her younger self, having wished for greater exposure to STEM concepts at a younger age. [3]
Margaret Eloise Knight was an American inventor, notably of a machine to produce flat-bottomed paper bags. She has been called "the most famous 19th-century woman inventor". She founded the Eastern Paper Bag Company in 1870, creating paper bags for groceries similar in form to the ones that would be used in later generations. Knight received dozens of patents in different fields and became a symbol for women's empowerment.
Beulah Louise Henry was an American inventor whose extensive contributions to consumer products and manufacturing technology solidified her legacy in the field. Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, and later based in New York City, Henry was a pioneering figure who held 49 patents and developed over 110 inventions, significantly advancing technology while breaking gender barriers in her field.
The Lemelson Foundation is an American 501(c)(3) private foundation. It was started in 1993 by Jerome H. Lemelson and his wife Dorothy. The foundation held total net assets of US$444,124,049 at the end of 2020 and US$484,432,021 at the end of 2021. The Foundation seeks to harness the power of invention and innovation to accelerate climate action and improve lives around the world.
Sandra “Sandy” Carter is an American businesswoman, speaker and author. She was a general manager at IBM from 2013 to 2016, vice president at Amazon Web Services from 2017 to 2021 and is currently the chief operating officer at Unstoppable Domains.
Corinna E. Lathan is an American entrepreneur, engineer, and social activist. She is the author of InventingThe Future: Stories from a Techno Optimist. Dr. Lathan is currently CEO of De Oro Devices. She is also the Co-Founder, and former CEO and Board Chair of AnthroTronix, Inc., a biomedical research and development company headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA. Lathan is recognized for her work on digital health software and assistive technology.
Virginia "Ginni" Rometty is an American business executive who was executive chairman of IBM after stepping down as CEO on April 1, 2020. She was previously chairman, president and CEO of IBM, becoming the first woman to head the company. She retired from IBM on December 31, 2020, after a near-40 year career there. Before becoming president and CEO in January 2012, she first joined IBM as a systems engineer in 1981 and subsequently headed global sales, marketing, and strategy.
International Business Machines Corporation, nicknamed Big Blue, is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York and present in over 175 countries. It is a publicly traded company and one of the 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. IBM is the largest industrial research organization in the world, with 19 research facilities across a dozen countries, having held the record for most annual U.S. patents generated by a business for 29 consecutive years from 1993 to 2021.
Map Project Office is an industrial design studio based in Central London, working with both major brands and start-ups in the consumer technology space. The studio works with abstract technologies in the artificial intelligence, augmented reality and the IoT sectors, creating accessible experiences for the end user.
Lisa Tzwu-Fang Su is an American billionaire business executive, computer scientist, and electrical engineer who is the president, chief executive officer (CEO), and chair of the semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).
Mukta Ghate Farooq is an Indian metallurgical engineer of Marathi descent working for the IBM Corporation in Hopewell Junction, New York. She was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2016 for her contributions to 3D integration and interconnect technology. She is currently a Distinguished Research Staff Member at IBM Research and has over 220 issued US patents including patent numbers 10199315, 20180061749, and 8367543. In 2017, IIT Bombay awarded her the notable alumna award
Xin Zhang is a Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Boston University (BU).
Mary Jesse is an American technology and media pioneer having led early work on several groundbreaking innovations and influential technologies in the late 20th century and early 21st century.
Lisa Dyson is an American scientist, physicist, and entrepreneur who is the founder and CEO of Air Protein, a food tech company, reinventing how food is produced using elements of the air. As one of the companies recognized by the World Economic Forum, Air Protein aims to help sustainably and nutritiously feed 10 billion people by 2050.
Dr. Marian Rogers Croak is an acclaimed American engineer who utterly transformed the capabilities of internet communication. Currently the Vice President of Engineering at Google, Croak's claim to fame was her revolutionary patent concerning Voice Over Internet Protocols (VoIP). This technology allows a person to make calls through Internet connection rather than a typical phone line, facilitating flexible and faster long distance communication globally. Prior to Google, Dr. Croak worked at AT&T and filed over 200 patents under her name. The prolific innovation of Dr. Croak shows her dedication to “reducing the barrier of entry to quality, affordable communication for the masses”. In 2022, she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for her work with VoIP. She stated, "Many people think inventors have to be brilliant and off the charts in terms of their IQ, super smart and super academic in school and have gotten all A's, and that's not at all true. Inventors are usually people like you. Sometimes they're good at certain things, other times they're not, and that's ok. Just focus on what you want to change and you become that change and can make that change happen."
Gitanjali Rao is an American inventor, author, social activist, and a STEM student and advocate.
Edith Helen Stern is an American inventor and mathematician and former Vice President for Research and Development at IBM. She holds over 100 US patents and was awarded the ASME Kate Gleason Award. Stern was a child prodigy, who read the Encyclopædia Britannica at the age of 5 and was the youngest ever graduate of Florida Atlantic University at the age of 15.
Erin Smith is an American entrepreneur and inventor. She is the founder of FacePrint, a medical technology venture focused on developing facial recognition software for assisting in the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. In 2018, Smith was recognized as a Thiel Fellow, and in 2022, she was awarded the first place Young Inventors Prize by the European Patent Office.
Rhonda Childress is an IBM Fellow Vice President of GTS. She has earned the title of being the first Services woman to be called an IBM Master Inventor, Security Fellow, and the first Fellow from a predominantly African-American college from spending her whole career in SO. She was also the first IBM fellow from a Historical Black University. Childress is a prolific inventor with over 200 patents, 130 of which are related to the management of systems, cyber security, mobile, aircraft, and IoT. In 2018, she was inducted into the WITI Hall of Fame for her efforts in her career at IBM. Childress is one of 25 female IBM fellow in IBM's history.