Mabel MacFerran Rockwell

Mabel MacFerran Rockwell

An AIEE member, Mabel was born in 1925 in Philadelphia to Quaker parents. She attended The Friends School in Germantown, PA and Bryn Mawr. After graduation he transferred to MIT where she earned her Bachelors in electrical engineering in 1925. She ranked first in her class at MIT. She was employed by Southern California Edison as a technical assistant. Rockwell also worked for the Metropolitan Water District, the US Bureau of Reclamation and was involved with the military during World War II. There she conducted research in underwater propulsion systems and submarine guidance.

She was married to Stanley Rockwell, who was also an electrical engineer. Mabel was an energetic engineer and was promoted faster than her husband. They would divorce in 1960. She has one daughter, Margaret Alice.

Rockwell helped design the power system for the Colorado River Aqueduct project and was the only woman involved in designing and installing the power generating machinery for Hoover Dam.1

She published several papers in the Transaction of the AIEE and was also published in other professional publications.

It is written that she was a night person who worked all night, and ate in all-night restaurants rather than cook. She passed away in 1981.