Margaret Hutchinson Rousseau

She is the famous Chemical Engineer of the week!

Rousseau, born in 1910 was an American Chemical Engineer who was the one who designed the first commercial Penicillin production plant. She was not only an ordinary Chemical Engineer, but wired to have an entrepreneurial mindset too. This may have come from her father, who was the owner of a clothing store back in the day, in Houston, Texas. 

It was during the second World War when Rousseau began to oversee the designing of production plants. As we know, in those days the emergence of a female entrepreneur was very rare. Rousseau stood up amidst all the stereotypes and built a reputation for herself by enabling a large scale production of Penicillin. She was able to achieve this by developing a deep-tank fermentation of Penicillium mold, and an improved version of a distillation column for production of ethylene glycol and glacial acetic acid. She also worked on the development of a high octane value gasoline for an aviation fuel! 

Margaret's list of achievements does not end here, though. Did you know that she was the first female  member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, A.K.A "AIChE"- which is, for those of you who don't know, a professional organization for Chemical Engineers. In 1937, she was the first female to earn a doctorate in Chemical Engineering from MIT on the thesis The effect of solute on the liquid film resistance in gas absorption. 

Margaret is nothing less than an inspiration to Chemical Engineers all over the world, because of her undying determination to prove a woman's competence despite the stereotypes that society forces onto them. She proved to be a true example of a warrior, and that being a Chemical Engineer does not limit you to the boundaries of its subject, but that you could quite literally be a multi-faced all rounded wizard if you wanted to.