‘Women hold up half the sky’ and in the saga of human accomplishments and path-breaking discoveries, women have been pioneers, innovators, flagbearers, tech evangelists, polymaths, and mavericks. While many of them got the accolades they deserved in the span of their lifetime, others remain unsung.
In the field of science and technology, despite being grossly underrepresented and facing prejudice, the contributions made by legendary women scientists like Marie Curie, Hedy Lamar, Grace Hopper and countless others lead to new breakthroughs and inspired further advancements.
Women legends played a pivotal role in the development of geospatial intelligence and their research or insights continue to motivate the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
On the occasion of International Women’s Day, let us have a look at the women whose brilliance, rigorous research, meticulous approach and unparalleled leadership has played a seminal role in the development of geospatial intelligence and evolution of NGA.
Sacagawea
Nobody epitomizes NGA’s motto “Know the Earth… Show the Way… Understand the World” better than Sacagawea. As a feisty teenager, she accompanied Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark during their exploration of the Western United States between 1804 and 1806.
In 1804 her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, worked along with Lewis and Clark as they explored Louisiana Purchase.
At the beginning of the journey, she played a crucial role in exploration owing to her command of many native languages and her overall knowledge of flora and fauna that was unknown to the Corps of Discovery.
When the expedition reached the Missouri river, her knowledge of the landscape and Shoshone language proved to be indispensable. This exploration is perhaps the earliest avatar of geospatial intelligence, as we know it today.
Mary Sears
Women are still not adequately represented in STEM and a lot of ‘glass ceilings’ in many other fields are yet to be shattered. But Mary Sears was a pioneer of STEM in the USA in an era when the movement for gender equality was still in its early days.
A native of the US state of Massachusetts, she quit her job as a research assistant at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to render national service at the time of Second World War. She headed the Navy Hydrographic Office’s new Oceanographic Unit in 1943, which was the beginning of US military oceanographic programs.
Serving as a Navy lieutenant in the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES), she undertook research that proved to be extremely important for the survival of US submarines during the war. The intelligence reports submitted by her first predicted the presence of thermoclines, which are areas where water temperature changes rapidly. Submarines can stealthily operate and avoid detection in areas where there are thermoclines.
After the end of the Second World War, the Navy Hydrographic Office founded the Division of Oceanography and Sears was appointed as its in-charge. She retired in 1963 as a commander in the US Naval Reserve.
NGA is carrying forward the legacy of Sears’s groundbreaking research. Bathymetry and Oceanography are essential to geospatial intelligence and maritime safety, whose groundwork was laid by Mary Sears.
Constance Babington Smith
Constance remains a pioneer in the field of aircraft based photographic interpretation. She is also the first Commonwealth partner who was inducted in the NGA’S Geospatial-Intelligence Hall of Fame.
She joined Women’s Auxiliary Force to support the Royal Air Force as a photographic interpreter during the Second World War. Post the Allied triumph in the European war, she went to the US to contribute to the war efforts against Japan.
Constance Babington Smith was conferred with the Order of the British Empire in 1945. She also authored many books, including “Air Spy: The Story of Photo Intelligence in World War II and Evidence in Camera.”
Irene Fischer
Austrian born Irene K. Fischer was not only a legendary geodesist; she is also an inspiration to all the women in science, technology, electronics, and mathematics. She is among the pioneers of geodesy, which is the science of accurately measuring and understanding the earth’s geometric shape, its orientation in space, and its gravity field.
After graduating in mathematics from the University of Vienna, she tied the nuptial knot and opened a kindergarten in Vienna. When Adolf Hitler annexed Austria in 1938, her serene life in Austria was torn apart and she fled to the USA along with her family.
In the USA, she worked at the AMS in Maryland and played an important role in the development of the World Geodetic System. She became the first AMS employee to receive the Distinguished Civilian Service Award, the highest honor given by the Secretary of Defense to career civilian personnel.
Marion Frieswyk
Hailed as the first female intelligence cartographer of the world, Marion Frieswyk joined CIA’S Office of Strategic Services Map Division in 1942. When the CIA recruited her she was a still a student at the Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. During her long and remarkable career, she produced customized maps and 3-D topographic models. Marion was a visionary in recognizing that geography is crucial to intelligence.
Mary Tharp
Marie Tharp produced a comprehensive map of the world’s ocean floor along with Dr. Bruce Heezen. Due to her efforts as skill as a cartographer, Tharp made the “black canvas” of the deep oceans visible. She studied English and music during her undergraduate years at the Ohio University but switched to science stream for her master’s degree in geology and mathematics.
Dr. Gladys West
Inducted in the US Air Force Hall of Fame last year, Dr. Gladys West studied mathematics on a scholarship at a local college in Virginia at a time when STEM was totally male-dominated. After finishing her college, she started working at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgreen, Virginia. Her work included collecting and analyzing satellite data that could help in determining the exact location. This information was essential in the development of GPS.
Dr. Annette J. Krygiel
Dr. Annette J. Krygiel spent most of her illustrious 38-year-long career as a leader in the US Department of Defence, which has traditionally been a male bastion. She managed geodetic and gravimetric programs and supervised the development of computer science and telecommunications applications for mapping.
She began her career at the Aeronautical Chart and Information Center in 1963 and served as the chief scientist at the Defense Mapping Agency and then the final director of the Central Imagery Office. Upon the foundation of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency in 1996, she was appointed as its deputy director for Systems and Technology. She was inducted in the GEOINT Hall of Fame in 2001.
Roberta “Bobbi” Lenczowski
Bobbi Lenzowski was the deputy director of NGA Campus West in St, Louis when she retired in 2005. She served three years as NGA’s technical executive and was also director of operations with the National Imagery and Mapping Agency for more than five years. She also served as president of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing and represented NGA on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advisory Committee on Commercial Remote Sensing and the Department of the Interior’s National Satellite Land Remote Sensing Data Archive Advisory Committee, and the Security Affairs Support Association.
Letitia A. Long
Letitia A. Long became the first woman in US history to head a US intelligence agency when she became the fifth director of NGA. While helming over the NGA, she made a number of important changes in the agency for advancing GEOINT and offered continuous support to policymakers, warfighters and first responders.
She steered NGA through two wars, government shutdown and new emerging threats to defense and security. Under Long’s leadership, NGA provided expert assistance to the raid that killed the international most wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden, and also provided relief in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. NGA continued to provide its crucial insights to the developing world at the time of crisis and disasters.
