Women in the National Inventors Hall of Fame: The First 50 Years

About Ilene Busch-VishniacJill TietjenLauren Busch

Ilene Busch-Vishniac is an acoustician an advocate for women in STEM fields an inventor an author and a C-suite business entrepreneur.  She began her professional career at Bell Laboratories where she was privileged to work with James E. West a scientist awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation and a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. While at Bell Labs her work on acoustic sensors and actuators led to seven US patents one of which was named outstanding patent of the year by the company. She left Bell Labs for an academic position at The University of Texas where she rose through the ranks to become the holder of an endowed chair.  Her research led to an additional four US patents and many awards for research teaching and communication. Ilene left the University of Texas to assume her first administrative position as the Dean of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.  From there she moved to the Provost and Vice President Academic office at McMaster University and then the President and Vice-Chancellor at the University of Saskatchewan. Upon retiring from academia Ilene spent time as a higher education consultant and then joined Sonavi Labs Inc. a company spun out from research at Johns Hopkins University as the Chief Innovation Officer.  She later assumed the role of Chief Operating Officer as well.  She retired from her positions at Sonavi Labs in December 2022.   Lauren Busch is an operations research analyst with a bachelors degree in systems science and engineering from Washington University in St. Louis and a masters degree in operations research from George Washington University. She began her career at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab where she analyzed the effectiveness of US Naval ship defense systems. She did mathematical modeling and optimization for a chemical manufacturer. Busch also spent many years as a government contractor developing natural gas price forecasts for the US Department of Energy for its Annual Energy Outlook. Additionally she was a principal at a search engine optimization firm. Busch has been active as a community volunteer and currently serves as an advocate for young children in foster care through Dallas CASA.   Jill S. Tietjen P.E. is an author (15 books published to date) international speaker and electrical engineer. She is the co-author of the best-selling and award-winning books Her Story:  A Timeline of the Women Who Changed America and Hollywood: Her Story An Illustrated History of Women and the Movies. Her 2022 award-winning book was Over Under Around and Through: How Hall of Famers Surmount Obstacles. Her 15th book released in 2024 is Duty Calls: Lessons Learned from an Unexpected Life of Service the memoir of the 14th United States Surgeon General (and first woman) Dr. Antonia Novello (with whom she co-authored). A former blogger for the Huffington Post she speaks around the country about womens contributions to history. Tietjen has conducted research into historical women around the world for the past thirty years. She is arguably one of the top historians on women across all fields of endeavor in the country. Tietjen works to bring women more visibility through her ceaseless nominations of historical and living women for national state and local awards. Her nominees have been successfully inducted into the National Womens Hall of Fame the National Inventors Hall of Fame the Colorado Womens Hall of Fame the Maryland Womens Hall of Fame and the Hall of Fame of Delaware Women. Two of her nominees have received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation (awarded by the President of the United States). Tietjen is the CEO of Technically Speaking and is a nationally known advocate for attracting more women into scientific technical engineering and mathematics careers. She is frequently invited to be the keynote speaker at engineering science and womens conferences and meetings around the country and to speak at universities. In addition she is often profiled and quoted in the media her articles have been printed in a wide variety of publications and she does regular television and radio appearances. Tietjen serves as an outside director on the board of Georgia Transmission Corporation and served on the board of Merrick & Company 2010-2021.  She serves on the honorary board of the Colorado Womens Hall of Fame. She has received numerous awards and has been inducted into the Colorado Womens Hall of Fame the Colorado Authors Hall of Fame and the National Academy of Construction.