USA – #technicianjourney

Eva Firmani

Eva standing in front of Discovery on the mobile launch platform on the way to the launch pad.

Tile technicians like Eva work kept astronuts safe as they left and re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere.

Gladys Owens was just 19 years of age when she arrived to work in the town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It was 1945 and she was to spend 8 months working there as a technician on the Manhattan Project. Gladys would become one of the “Calutron Girls” whose role, though none of them knew it at the time, was key to the building of the first atomic bomb.

Fanny Hesse

Fanny Hesse (1850-1934) was a lab technician and technical illustrator who introduced agar to the study of bacteria revolutionising microbiology.

Blanche Lawrence

Blanche J. Lawrence (1921-?) graduated from Tuskegee University before going on to work as a technician and then junior chemist on the Manhattan Project.

Clarence Dally: a technician in trouble

Clarence Dally (1865-1904) was a glass blower and assistant to Edison in his work on X-rays. His was one of the first deaths attributed to the effects of X-rays.

Andrew Schally – from technician to Nobel Prize

Andrew Schally (1926-current) escaped Poland during WWII, became a technician in Mill Hill laboratories and from there went on to win the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Pinky: a technician’s technician

Pinky (1995-1998) only one technician has achieve world domination, only to lose it again. Pinky was Brain’s faithful assistant and a mouse with a lot to teach us.

Vivien Thomas: surgical technician

Vivien Thomas (1910-1985) saved many lives through the, often unacknowledged, surgical innovations he developed as a surgical technician. This after the stock market crash of 1929 took away his life savings, his dreams of becoming a doctor, and his job as a carpenter.

Beaker: a model technician

Beaker (1977- ) quickly became one of the foremost communicators of science of his day. As Dr. Bunsen’s assistant he showed a generation of children the wonders of the modern scientific age.