This year’s African American Steering Committee wants to pay attention to some of the long history, including famous creativity, craftsmen, scientists and leaders. Cutting black “You know?” this year will celebrate the invention of inventors and their everyday objects that help storytelling in movies and TV.
Marian Rogers Croak Ph.D
1955 –
Engineer Marian Croak has been working to advance voice through Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, converting voice data into digital signals that can be easily transmitted over the Internet rather than using traditional telephone lines. Her work promotes the ability of audio and video conferencing, making it a practical reality in today’s world. She is Google’s vice president of engineering. She was previously Senior Vice President of Research and Development at AT&T, and she owns more than 200 patents. She was inducted into the International Women’s Hall of Fame in 2013. In 2022, Croak was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his patents on VoIP. She received her bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in 1977 and received her Ph.D. In 1982, the University of Southern California specialized in quantitative analysis and psychology. Croak won the Edison Patent Award in 2013 and 2014. She is currently a member of the corporate advisory board of her alma mater, the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California.
