Mary Y. Chen

Mary Lyon Award

March 9, 1996

Mary Y. Chen, class of 1983. We recognize your achievements in and contributions to the engineering profession, not only as a scientific researcher but as a role model for women in a nontraditional field.

At age thirty-three, having come to the United States from the People's Republic of China, you graduated magna cum laude in physics and went on to earn a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Cornell University in 1987. Joining the Research Triangle Institute as a senior research engineer in the Center for Semiconductor Research, you began your professional career as codeveloper of a complete fabrication process for heterojunction bipolar transistors and integrated circuits. Later, at COMSAT Laboratories on the technical staff and as supervisor in the heterojunction products department of the Microwave Electronics Division, you developed and managed new technologies. Your power high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) processes and microwave integrated circuits have generated multimillion-dollar business opportunities. Now, at Hughes Research Laboratories in California, you bring your creative engineering talents to the research staff of the Microwave Devices and Circuits Laboratory.

Your colleagues have described you as a role model who has inspired teamwork. One stated that you exhibit courage, determination and persistence first to define and then to achieve your personal and professional goals. These traits were clearly visible during your difficult but successful effort to bring your father and mother, who earned her master's degree from Mount Holyoke in 1941, to the United States in the late 1980s.

Clearly, you exemplify the human values that Mary Lyon exemplified in her life and inspired in others. The Alumnae Association, therefore, is proud to present to you the Mary Lyon Award.