This Georgia Tech professor broke barriers for women in aerospace

As a Star Trek-loving adolescent, Marilyn Smith wanted to be the first American woman astronaut. While less-than-perfect eyesight quickly scuttled that dream, her interest in space and science launched her into a career in aerospace engineering at a time when the field included very few women.

Smith is the director of the Georgia Tech Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence and a professor in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, where she leads vertical lift research for aircraft like helicopters, air taxis and drones.

Before her teaching career, she spent more than 15 years in the industry working for the Lockheed-Georgia Company (now Lockheed Martin) and McDonnell Douglas.

Smith is a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Royal Aeronautical Society, and a technical fellow of the Vertical Flight Society, which has also named her an honorary fellow for her lasting impact on the community, selected her to give the prestigious Nikolsky Honorary Lectureship in 2022, and twice awarded her the Agusta Westland International Fellowship Award for her research contributions.

On Oct. 5, she will give the Yvonne Brill lecture in Washington, D.C., focusing on rotorcraft for extraplanetary exploration.

As she looks toward retirement at the end of this year, she spoke about the highlights and challenges of her work in such a male-dominated field.

Edited for length and clarity.

Q. When did you first begin your long relationship with Georgia Tech?

A. I was a freshman in 1977. I graduated with my bachelor’s in ‘82. Lockheed sent me back part-time — what we now call distance learning — in January of ‘83 and I finished my master’s in ‘85 and one quarter later, started my Ph.D program.

So I was a student, even part time, up till ‘94. Then I started teaching part time, but then I joined the Georgia Tech Research Institute in 1990. I joined the School of Aerospace Engineering in 1997, and I’ve been at the aerospace school ever since.

It’s called a triple jacket when you get all your three degrees from here. I kept saying they kept throwing me out, and I kept coming back, kind of like a boomerang or bad pain.

Georgia Tech professor Marilyn Smith (seen in her office) has been teaching at the university since 1994. (Jason Getz/AJC)

Q. You’ve been one of the first women in some of these spaces, probably often the only woman in the room. Have you seen that shift as you worked in this field?

A. With the exception of one job that I’ve had in my career, I was always the first woman in my department. In flight tests at Lockheed, in the R&D department at Lockheed-Georgia. I don’t know if I was the first woman at GTRI, but I certainly was at the aerospace lab at GTRI, and then, of course, the first woman faculty member (in aerospace engineering). So yeah, lots and lots of firsts.

Very much the only woman in the room, or one of only two or three women in a bigger room. I would say that we’ve gone from institutional bias toward women — it’s still there, but it’s more individual bias. So you’re still going to run into people who are biased against women. If you’re lucky, they don’t have any sway over you, and they can’t hurt your career. Or you have the backing of your organization.

I’ve worked with a lot of women over the years, trying to help them with situations like that, because I’ve dealt with them. I’ve pretty much dealt with them all, I think.

Throughout my career I’ve actually worked myself into a bit of a health situation, because I’ve always worked many, many extra hours. You know the old saying: ‘You have to work twice as hard as a man to get half the recognition.’ That was certainly true.

One of the things that I hope I’ve done is to make it so that other women following on after me don’t have to do that. They’ll work a regular career and be accepted as a person, and not have to do more.

Q. Are there resources you would recommend for women in aerospace?

A. When I first graduated and was looking into grad school, the fellowship winners were all men. If you were a woman, you were very lucky to get any support at all. There were a few, but very, very few. Now there’s plenty of resources like that, even in professional societies.

I’m a member of the Vertical Flight Society, which is all helicopters, air taxis, drones. We have what’s known as WOVEN: the Women in Vertical Flight Engineering Network. We meet and what’s really cool is it’s not limited to women; we’ll help everyone, but we do have a women’s slant.

I’m involved heavily with WOVEN, and I want to make sure that women don’t have to deal with what I had to deal with. And that you have the support and you support one another. In some engineering fields, they’re 50% women. I would say we are probably still somewhere between 15 to 25% women in aerospace.

When she started her career, Smith says she was "very much the only woman in the room, or one of only two or three women in a bigger room." (Jason Getz/AJC)

Q. Anything you would do differently if you could?