Chemical Engineering, retired

Summary

In high school I took all the math classes that were offered: both beginning and advanced algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. Although I planned to major in chemistry, I liked math so well that I switched to chemical engineering, because I thought I would use math more in engineering. In 1948, I received a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota.

For several years, I worked at General Electric, Sylvania, and Stanford Research Institute as an analytical and production chemist. I wanted to learn more math, so I went to San Jose State University and in 1968, earned an MS in Mathematics. Two of my sisters were teachers, and I thought I might like to teach math at a junior college. However, there were no open teaching positions at local junior colleges, so I taught high school algebra and geometry at a private girls' school instead.

I did not enjoy teaching so much as I had hoped, so after three years I returned to engineering, this time at Hewlett-Packard. In my last job before retirement, I was in charge of oxidation-diffusion furnaces in a semiconductor manufacturing facility. When building semiconductor “chips” from silicon, oxides are grown on them. They are then patterned with photolithography equipment to make the various devices: transistors, resistors, and so on. Dopants, such as phosphorous, are diffused into the circuits to make the desired electrical properties. At the end of the process, more oxides are grown to protect the circuits from the outside atmosphere.