Google pays respect to the Hungarian-American scientist and biophysicist Dr. Maria Telkes on December 12, 2022. Dr. Telkes was one of the pioneers of solar energy and was known as the “Sun Queen” for her contribution to the solar thermal storage system.
Google has created a Doodle in honour of Dr. Telkes to commemorate her 122nd birthday.
Dr. Telkes, who was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1900, studied physical chemistry at Eotvos Loránd University in Budapest. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in 1920 and her Doctor of Philosophy in 1924.
As a proponent of utilising solar energy, she was among the first researchers to do so in an experimental home.
She moved to the United States in 1925 after being employed as a biophysicist by the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
Dr. Telkes was a member of the Solar Energy Committee at the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he became an American citizen in 1937. (MIT). During World War II, the U.S. government encouraged her to create a solar salt-water still for the Navy, which saved the lives of torpedoed sailors and downed pilots. She spent a number of years working with inexpensive solar-powered stoves that might be used by the needy.
She collaborated with architect Eleanor Raymond to construct the first solar-heated home, the Dover Sun House, in the 1940s. The success of the experiment was widely recognised and popularised the phrase “solar energy.”
The Ford Foundation commissioned her to build a solar oven that is still in use today. She has participated in solar energy research at major universities such as New York University, Princeton University, and the University of Delaware. Dr. Telkes was awarded over twenty patents and served as a consultant for a number of energy corporations.
Google noted on her doodle that on this day in 1952, Dr. Telkes received the inaugural recipient of the Society of Women Engineers Achievement Award.
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