Dorothy Hoffman


Dorothy M. Hoffman was an American engineer. In 1974 she became the first woman to be elected President of American Vacuum Society and the first woman to serve as president of any scientific society in the USA. She was born in New York City and attended City University of New York. Trained as a concert pianist, she performed at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. Dorothy Hoffman got her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1947.
She worked for International Resistance Co. near Philadelphia where she became an engineering and research project leader. In 1961 she became the first woman to be invited to a membership in the Engineers' Club of Philadelphia. At her retirement in 1990, she was the Head of Thin Film Laboratory at David Sarnoff Research Center In Penns Neck, where she worked for 28 years.
After her retirement she continued to volunteer at American Vacuum Society. In 1993 she started the effort to put together a reference handbook for vacuum scientists and engineers to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the society. This resulted in publication of the popular "Handbook of Vacuum Science and Technology" by Academic Press, of which she is the lead co-editor.
In 2002, the American Vacuum Society established the Dorothy M. and Earl S. Hoffman student award "to recognize and encourage excellence in continuing graduate studies in the sciences and technologies of interest to AVS."

Publications