Photo Courtesy of NIHF
According to the official website, engineer Marian Croak and ophthalmologist Dr. Patricia Bath are making history as the first Black women to be ever inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Croak has earned over 200 patents throughout her career and is currently employed as Google’s vice president of engineering.
“It’s humbling and a great experience,” Croak said. “At the time, I never thought the work that I was doing was that significant and that it would lead to this, but I’m so I’m very grateful for the recognition.”
“I have always been motivated by the desire to change the world and to do that, I try to change the world that I’m currently in,” she said. “What I mean by that is I work on problems that I am aware of and that I can tackle within the world that surrounds me.”
Bath was the first Black woman physician in 1988 to receive a medical patent but sadly did not live to see her Hall of Fame induction. According to Black Enterprise, the inventor died in 2019 due to cancer complications.
Representatives for the late physician commemorated Bath’s induction on her Instagram account, noting that she had been nominated for the honor 11 times over the past three decades.
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“This deserving recognition and honor for Dr. Patricia Bath’s achievements in scientific innovation was always hidden in plain sight,” the post’s caption read. “Time and time again, she overcame intersectional barriers of racism and sexism and persevered with grace, as a game-changing trailblazer.”
Croak is being explicitly honored for her contributions in the advancement of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which is the technology that allows us to make phone calls using an internet connection instead of on a landline or a mobile network.
Bath, who had five medical patents throughout her career, is being inducted for an invention she called the Laserphaco Probe, a surgical laser used to eliminate cataracts.