Yvonne Brill, 1924–2013

last updated 8 January 2015

Before Yvonne Brill became one of the most prominent female rocket scientists in the U.S., she was denied the opportunity to even study engineering. The University of Manitoba in her native Canada would not allow her to major in engineering, since there were no facilities for women at an engineering camp students had to attend. “You just have to be cheerful about it,” she said of the obstacles she faced, “and not get upset when you get insulted.”

Brill ended up studying mathematics and chemistry in Manitoba, said The Washington Post, and “gravitated to the chemistry of propellants” while employed by the Douglas Aircraft Co. in California. There she helped design an unmanned orbital spacecraft for the Army Air Corps-—a project that became the foundation of the RAND Corp. In 1945, a women’s engineering organization singled her out as “possibly the only woman with a technical job who was involved in rocket propulsion.” Soon after, she met her husband, Bill Brill, a chemist. Together, “they faced a challenge”—for him, the good jobs were on the East Coast, and for her they were in California. In the end, she decided to follow him, arguing that “good jobs are easier to find than good husbands.”

Brill took time off work in the 1960s to care for her children, said The New York Times, but returned to work in 1966 at RCA Astro Electronics. It was there that she began doing “work that won international acclaim.” A rocket thruster that she patented in 1972 is still widely used today for satellites that handle international phone calls and long-range TV broadcasts. In 1981, she went to work for NASA developing the rocket motor for the space shuttle. “Her personal and professional balancing act also won notice.” In 1980, she was named a “Diamond Superwoman” by Harper’s Bazaar for returning to a successful job after raising a family.