Elisabeth Mertz Drake (December 20, 1936 – July 25, 2024) was an American chemical engineer whose work spanned a wide range of topics, including cryogenics, industrial risk management, destruction of chemical weapons, and sustainable energy.
She applied to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in defiance of a high school mathematics teacher who told her that, despite being the best student in the class, she "shouldn't even think about it".
[1] Among her friends there was Vilma Espín, who left school to become a Cuban revolutionary and later first lady of Cuba.
[2] Other early work for the company focused on cryogenics, with applications in the Apollo program for lunar exploration and on Earth in the production of liquefied natural gas,[4] and for generation of oxygen on ships for aircraft carrier pilots.
[5] She was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1992, "for leadership in industrial safety and risk management".