Born: 14 September 1913, United States
Died: 20 November 1986
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Mary Virginia Sink
The following was written by Nina Baker and is excerpted from the book From Alchemy to Transport Phenomena: A Global History of Women in Chemical Engineering.
As is evident in the histories of other women chemical engineers our next example used her career to work on what we would now call the environmental or sustainability side of her field. Virginia Sink (1913-1986) used her degree in chemical engineering from the University of Colorado (1936) and masters in engineering from the Chrysler Institute of Engineering (1938) to become not only the first woman automotive engineer at Chrysler. She graduated as a chemical engineer but by 1950 the Group Leader in the Chemical Research Department and worked on the LA smog project from 1957 until 1962 when she co-developed Chrysler’s Cleaner Air Package. Sink retired, as Manager of Emission Certification in the Materials Engineering department, in 1979.