Born May 14, 1955, Marian Rogers Croak is an African American engineer who was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for her work. Ever heard of VoIP? VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol — it’s a technology that lets you make phone calls over the Internet instead of traditional telephone lines.
Still not ringing a bell? Ok, so you have a meeting with your boss at 8:30 am tomorrow but she is in D.C. and you are in Atlanta, how is that going to work? Zoom? Google Meet? Skype? Microsoft Teams? Facetime? Exactly, any one of these would work, and without Marian Croak that remote job you have probably wouldn’t exist without her.
She is the unsung trailblazer behind the groundbreaking development of VoIP. She has over 120 patents and more than 30 years of work with AT&T under her belt. She has 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, making it a practical reality in today’s world.
Since 2014, Croak has worked as the Vice President of the Google Engineering Group, where she leads the Research Center for Responsible AI and Human-Centered Technology. She also works on racial justice efforts at Google and continues her goal of encouraging women and young girls in engineering.
Her achievements and inventions have been recognized by the National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF), the National Academy of Engineers, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.