Innovators are often driven by a playful sense of adventure to make an impact.
For some, planting flags in uncharted inventive territory is the chief thrill. Others innovate for financial reward. Still others just can’t keep away from a tantalizing problem. For Leslie Field–who obtained her Bachelor’s and Master’s from MIT in chemical engineering, followed by an MS and PhD from UC Berkeley in electrical engineering and computer science—it’s about bettering the world.
Over four decades, Dr. Field has left her mark as a woman on innovation. Along the way to authoring 54 patents and founding Ice911 and SmallTech Consulting, whose staff in 2006 was originally–and not accidentally–almost all women (and one stay-at-home Dad), she’s advanced technology across many fields: from the oil industry and micro-electromechanical systems, to inkjet printers and medical devices, to planet-saving polar ice-melt retardants. And for a decade she has inspired her graduate and undergraduate students at Stanford in her Engineering, Entrepreneurship and Climate Change course to make similarly positive impacts on the world.
