by Ava Salado
Here is the story of a woman who helped the world in so many ways and helped show that women deserve a place in the engineering space in her time (1950s and 1960s). Growing up in a time when it was almost impossible to find respect in the work she was in, she worked hard for her respect and eventually got it, blazing the trail for women all around. You may have never even heard of her, this woman’s name is Judith Love Cohen.
Cohen’s life started in Brooklyn, New York. On August 16th, 1933, she was born to Sarah and Morris Bernard Cohen. Once her parents started putting her in school, they saw that she had a true thirst for knowledge, and soon after, kids started paying her to do their homework. Cohen’s best and favorite subject was math, and she soon realized that she wanted to be a math teacher when she grew up. She studied dance for the Metropolitan Opera Ballet company and got a scholarship to go to Brooklyn College to study engineering, and eventually got a major in math. Cohen later decided that she liked engineering better. She was usually the only girl in her math classes and was the only woman in her engineering classes in college. Cohen married a man named Bernard Seigle, who she had met at Brooklyn College as a classmate. They ended up having three children together, Neil, Howard, and Rachel. Cohen and Seigle divorced in the mid-’60s. Cohen then remarried Thomas “Tom” William Black; they had one child then divorced later on. After the divorce, she married David A. Katz, and they were married until Cohen’s death in 2016.
Her engineering work started in 1952 as a junior engineer for North American Aviation. She then graduated from USC Viterbi School of Engineering in 1957 and got a job at Space Technology Laboratories. Her extensive resume includes her work on the guidance computer for the Minuteman missile and the Abort-Guidance System in the Apollo Lunar Module. In fact, her Abort-Guidance System helped get the stranded astronauts back home on the tragic Apollo 13 mission. Cohen claimed this was the highlight of her career. The astronauts gave her a “thank you” at Redondo Beach once they returned. She loyally stayed with that company until 1990, when she retired. Once she retired, her work did not stop there. She started her own publishing company with her husband, David Katz, named Cascade Pass. Cohen published many books, and we have her to thank for writing and co-writing the “You can be a woman” series and so many others.
This incredible woman showed determination and hope when there was none, drive, and a deep love and appreciation for her work. This was shown on August 28th, 1969, when she was in the middle of solving a very important problem when she went into labor with her 4th child, the one I mentioned earlier. When she needed to go to the hospital, she made a stop at the office, did some work and grabbed her paperwork then headed out to finally go to the hospital. She worked the entirety of her labor, and right before she gave birth, she solved the problem! Right after, she called her boss, and according to Neil Seigle (her first child), he said“later that day, she called her boss and told him that she had solved the problem. And… oh, yes, the baby was born too.” The baby she gave birth to was, well, we know him as… Jack Black.
The Lighthouse 