Marian Rogers Croakis a Vice President of Engineering atGoogle. She was previously the Senior Vice President of Research and Development atAT&T.[1]She holds more than 200 patents.[2]She was inducted into theWomen in Technology International Hall of Famein 2013.[2]In 2022, Croak was inducted into theNational Inventors Hall of Famefor her patent regardingVoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)Technology.[3]She is one of the first two Black women to receive that honor, along withPatricia Bath.[4]Her invention allows users to make calls over the internet instead of a phone line. Today, the widespread use of VoIP technology is vital for remote work and conferencing.[3]
Croak was born on May 14, 1955, inNew York City.[3][5]Her father built her a home chemistry set, which inspired her to pursue a STEM career.[5]She obtained a bachelor’s degree fromPrinceton Universityin 1977 and a Ph.D. specializing in Quantitative Analysis and Psychology in 1982 from theUniversity of Southern California.[1]After college, she joinedAT&T Bell Laboratoriesin 1982, where she worked in a variety of positions for over 3 decades.[5]
Career[edit]
She started off in Bell’s Human Factors division, with the specific purpose of studying how technology could be used to positively impact human’s lives.[6]Croak first began working on digital messaging applications, tasked with the study of determining if various messaging applications could communicate with each other.[6]This kind of research was very novel, as the earliest form of the Internet would not come to full fruition until the next year in 1983.[6]Bell Labs wanted to send voice, text, and video data digitally rather than using a standard phone line. And the favored mechanism for this wasAsynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) protocol, but Croak, along with the rest of her team, convinced AT&T to useTCP/IPinstead.[6]TCP/IP allowed for a standardized way of packaging and communicating information.[6]
While at AT&T, Croak and her team contemplated the potential of digital telecommunications.[3]She worked on advancing Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies, converting voice data into digital signals that can be easily transmitted over the internet rather than using traditional phone lines. Her work has furthered the capabilities of audio and video conferencing.[3]
During her time at AT&T she patented the technology that allowed cellphone users to donate money to organizations using text messaging.[6]She developed this technology during the aftermath ofHurricane Katrina, and it revolutionized how people donate to charitable organizations when a natural disaster occurs.[2]She received the 2013 Thomas Edison Patent Award for this technology.[2]She was inspired to do this after seeing AT&T develop technology that helpedAmerican Idolset up a voting system that relied on text messages rather than voice calls, in 2003.[7]The technology that she created with co-inventorHossein Eslambolchi, was not finalized until October 2005, a couple of months after Hurricane Katrina.[7]But through this technology after the2010 Haiti earthquake, more than $43 million in donations were collected by relief organizations through donations by text message.[8]
Before leaving AT&T she held the title of Senior Vice President of Applications and Services Infrastructure.[5]At AT&T she managed over 2,000 engineers and computer scientists responsible for over 500 programs impacting AT&T’s enterprise and consumer wireline and mobility services.[9]Her responsibilities ranged from product realization and service planning to development and testing.[9]
Croak joined Google in 2014, as a Vice President in the engineering group.[1]At Google, she is responsible for expanding what the Internet is capable of doing around the world and increasing access to the Internet in the developing World.[5]She created a new center of expertise on ResponsibleAIwithin Google Research.[10]Croak also works on racial justice efforts at Google and continues her goal of encouraging women and young girls in engineering.[3]
Croak was inducted into theNational Inventors Hall of Fame, the National Academy of Engineers, and theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciencesin 2022.
