Yvonne Young Clark

Yvonne Y. Clark (born Georgianna Yvonne Young; April 13, 1929 – January 27, 2019) she was the first woman to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering at Howard University, the first woman to earn a master's degree in Engineering Management from Vanderbilt University, and the first woman to serve as a faculty member in the College of Engineering and Technology at Tennessee State University, afterward becoming a professor emeritus.

Early life Yvonne was born in 1929 in Houston, Texas and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. Her brother, C. Milton Young, III, became a physician.

Education Yvonne Clark's aspirations to become a pilot led her to pursue an engineering path at Central High School, but the mechanical drawing teacher did not allow her to enroll in the class at school because she was a girl. Clark circumvented this setback by enrolling in a summer course with a different teacher.

Clark was the first African-American woman to earn a master's degree in Engineering Management from Vanderbilt University in 1972, after having sent the first African-American students to their engineering department earlier.

Career Yvonne's first job after gaining her degree was in the Frankford Arsenal Gauge Lab, a U.S. Army ammunition plant in Philadelphia. She encouraged women to become engineers and reported in 1997 that 25% of the students in her department were female. In the summer of 1963 Clark was hired to work for NASA at the George C. Marshall Air and Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where she investigated the cause of hot spots identified in Saturn V engines. She then spent a summer at the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, helping design the Apollo Lunar Sample Return Containers used on Apollo 11 that Neil Armstrong used to bring moon samples back to Earth.

Clark did further research that discovered methods for revitalizing and modernizing part of the inner city through the Westinghouse's Defense and Space Center in Baltimore, Maryland. As of the 1990s, her research focused on refrigerants. She served as the main investigator for the research project "Experimental Evaluation of the Performance of Alternative Refrigerants in Heat Pump Cycles," funded by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Clark was also the student division team leader for the NASA funded project at TSU called the Center for Automated Space Science. Clark's granddaughter, Paris Lawson, is a sideline reporter for the Oklahoma City Thunder. Yvonne Young Clark died at her home in Nashville on January 27, 2019.

Awards Member and Executive Committee, Society of Women Engineers (1952–) Fellow of the Society of Women Engineers (1984–) Mechanism of the Year Award given by the TSU student Chapter of ASME for her unyielding support to her students. (1990) Women of Color Technology Award for Educational Leadership, by U.S. Black Engineers (1977) Adult Black Achievers Award by the Northwest Family YMCA for being a role model and mentor to the youth of today. (1977) Distinguished Engineering Educator Award (1998) Distinguished Service Award by the Tennessee Society of Professional Engineers (TSPE) for her outstanding leadership to her profession and contributions to the community. (2001) President's Distinguished University Award from TSU for 50 years of loyalty, dedication, and determination during her career in academia (2006) Educator of the Year Award by Delta Sigma Theta sorority, Nashville Alumnae chapter (2008) Member, American Society of Engineering Education Member, American Society of Mechanical Engineers