Game Changers: Two Black Women will be inducted into The National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Trailblazers, Marian Croak and Dr. Patricia Bath will become the first Black women to be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. This marks a historical moment for women of color as it will also be the first time this has happened in the organization’s 50 year history, which has bestowed approximately 600 other innovators both living and dead. Here’s what you need to know about these phenomenal women:

Dr. Patricia Bath

Dr. Bath, a Howard University graduate, has gained recognition as an ophthalmologist during her residency in New York. She was widely known for inventing the laserphaco probe, a minimally invasive device and technique that performs all steps of cataract removal. This device helped restore or improve vision to millions of patients worldwide. Dr. Bath originally came up with the idea in 1981 and published her first paper in 1987 and received her first U.S. patent for the device in 1988. It was later being used in Europe and Asia in the early 2000s. Dr. Bath received 5 patents over the course of her career. Though Dr. Patricia Bath passed in 2019, her work continues to change the face of medicine.

Marian Croak

Marian Croak’s success evolves around engineering and technology. She is currently the Vice President of Engineering at Google and previously served as Senior Vice President of Research and Development at AT&T. Mrs. Croak is widely credited as a developer of Voice over Internet Protocols that converts your voice into a digital signal, allowing people to make a call directly from a computer or other digital device. She holds more than 200 patents throughout her career. In her current position, Marian Croak has led Google’s service expansion into emerging markets, including managing the team who developed and initial communications technology for Project Loon and led the development of WIFI across India’s railway system. She continues to make her presence known as an influential woman in technology.

Though it is an honor for these wonderful women to be inducted it also proves a lingering problem when it comes to recruiting and promoting Black women in STEM. There are many many black innovators in this world but this is indeed small step forward into pushing the narrative to create more opportunities and encourage more inventions. Let’s continue to celebrate these two amazing women on their accomplishments!!!

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