Profile: An Engineering Pioneer: AIChE’s First Female Fellow

When Patsy Chappelear became the first female AIChE Fellow in 1980, printed on her commemorative certificate was an acknowledgement of “his” contributions to the field. There were no certificates with the correct pronoun available. At the time, she had been working as a petroleum engineer, researcher, and science advocate for well over two decades, but when she accepted her certificate, she remembered thinking, “It’s just another little thing to get taken care of one day, but I’m not going to do it.” It wasn’t until the induction of the second woman Fellow — Margaret Hutchinson Rousseau — that Chappelear received a corrected certificate, which she now displays placed over the original. Out of playful spite, she intends to donate the original to the Society of Women Engineers.

Chappelear, whose maiden name was Stallings, was born under inauspicious circumstances in Burnet, TX, in 1931. At the height of the Great Depression, her childhood experience was not uncommon, with her family frequently relocating across the American South and Midwest as her father looked for work. Although she attended over ten elementary schools, she developed a fascination with engineering from playing with Erector Sets and Lincoln Logs. In high school, she graduated valedictorian of her class and was accepted as an engineering student to Rice Univ., then called the Rice Institute.

Despite her talent at university, she was frequently treated less seriously than her peers. When she met with faculty members to help her decide whether she should pursue chemistry or chemical engineering, the head of the chemistry department told her directly, “Ms. Stallings, it doesn’t make any difference. You’re just going to get married and have children anyway.” On the other hand, the head of the chemical engineering department said that he would be delighted to have her in his class. After that, her choice was clear...