“She made fundamental contributions to the
cation as a whole have been transformed. In a recent
understanding of aircraft wake decay, which is terribly
interview, Widnall discussed her career and how it
important for the spacing apart of aircraft during
has intertwined with MIT’s evolution over the past
takeoff and landing and which has implications for
half-century. She began by noting MIT’s success in
airport safety and efficiency,” says longtime Wid-
attracting women to engineering education.
nall colleague and former Aero-Astro Head Earll Murman.
In 1993, President Clinton appointed
Widnall Secretary of the Air Force, making her the first woman to lead a branch of the military. She held
before. Do you think women engineers here are in the home stretch, or are there still a lot of barriers?
that position until 1997. Afterward, she became the
A. I think they’re in the home stretch. Beyond MIT,
first female president of the AIAA.
there is nobody, I mean nobody, in this country,
More recently, Widnall has focused on the discipline of systems engineering through her role as a board member of the MIT Lean Aerospace Initiative. Her expertise in analyzing complex systems led NASA to tap her as an investigator of the Columbia Space
WHAT WE’RE SEEING IS A VERY PRODUCTIVE COMMUNITY WHERE THERE IS A VERY STRONG ACCEPTANCE OF WOMEN STUDENTS AND FACULTY
Shuttle accident in 2003. She has given lectures nationwide on that investigation and how it uncovered serious institutional flaws that led to the crash. It’s this kind of visibility and ex-
perience that makes Widnall an ideal advocate for the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ continued leadership in addressing the needs of the aerospace industry. Partly through Widnall’s leadership both on and off campus, the department, MIT, and engineering edu-
50
Q. There are more women in engineering at MIT than ever
AERO-ASTRO 2004-2005
except for Smith College, that has engineering departments where women are the majority of the students. Nationally, the percentage of women in engineering schools is about 21 percent. When you tell other schools of engineering that women are the majority of students in at least three of our engineering departments, their mouths hang open. The general sense you have is that [the increase in the number of women] has transformed the Institute. It has had an effect on the women graduate students as well, because what has happened is that these students have transformed the faculty, and then the faculty see the women graduate students in a different light than perhaps 30 or 40 years ago when the numbers were much smaller. What we’re seeing is a very productive community where there is a very strong acceptance of women students and faculty.