--- title: Google Doodle Honors Native American Engineer Mary G. Ross description: Today’s Doodle celebrates Mary G. Ross, first Native American female engineer who made major contributions to aerospace industry canonical: https://time.com/5362032/google-doodle-mary-g-ross-native-american-engineer/ author: Casey Quackenbush article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-08-09T09:00:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:43:54.479Z og:title: Google Doodle Honors Native American Engineer Mary G. Ross og:description: Mary G. Ross' work opened the door for future female engineers og:url: https://time.com/5362032/google-doodle-mary-g-ross-native-american-engineer/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte1676285ad9244a4/698937648fd2ee452b35c56d/mary-g-ross-110th-birthday-4781894964084736-2x.jpg?branch=production&width=711&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 711 og:image:height: 400 og:image:alt: mary-g-ross-110th-birthday-4781894964084736-2x og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Google Doodle Honors Native American Engineer Mary G. Ross twitter:description: Mary G. Ross' work opened the door for future female engineers twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte1676285ad9244a4/698937648fd2ee452b35c56d/mary-g-ross-110th-birthday-4781894964084736-2x.jpg?branch=production&width=711&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Google Doodle Celebrates Mary G. Ross. Here's What to Know About the First Native American Woman Engineer > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME In the Loop: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition In the Loop is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Essential insights into the unfolding AI revolution. In the Loop makes sense of the ideas and technologies transforming how organizations operate, compete and communicate, with essential reporting, analysis, scoops and exclusive conversations. Through TIME's reporting and access to leading voices, readers get a clearer view of the developments shaping AI, technology and the rapidly changing decisions facing leaders today. 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It covers the reporting, scoops and conversations shaping AI and the decisions facing leaders. #### Where can I get reported AI news rather than commentary? In the Loop is TIME's AI newsletter, built on original reporting and access to the people building and governing AI. It publishes Tuesdays and Fridays and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes TIME's In the Loop? Harry Booth, a tech reporter at TIME, writes In the Loop. #### Is In the Loop free? Yes. In the Loop is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: How Google Makes its Doodles [Watch (HLS stream): How Google Makes its Doodles](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/upF0qp1E.m3u8) (3:23)  _Published 2018-07-07. Our videographer went to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California to meet some of the designers and coders who create the special, clever variations on the Google.com logo known as_ by [Casey Quackenbush](https://time.com/author/casey-quackenbush/) ## Casey Quackenbush Aug 9, 2018 9:00 AM UTC  Google Doodle celebrates the 110th birthday of Mary G. Ross on August 9, 2018. Google Doodle celebrates the 110th birthday of Mary G. Ross on August 9, 2018. Google by [Casey Quackenbush](https://time.com/author/casey-quackenbush/) ## Casey Quackenbush Aug 9, 2018 9:00 AM UTC Today’s Google Doodle [celebrates](https://www.google.com/doodles/mary-g-ross-110th-birthday) the 110th birthday of Mary G. Ross, the first Native American woman engineer. Over the course of her five-decade career, Ross achieved many firsts and made major contributions to the aerospace industry. Here’s what to know about the trailblazer, born on Aug. 9, 1908, who opened the doors for future female engineers in the field. ## Who Was Mary G. Ross? Great-great granddaughter to Chief John Ross of the Cherokee Nation, Mary G. Ross was born in the small town of Park Hill in Oklahoma. Raised with the Cherokee value of learning, Ross pursued a path considered nontraditional for women. After receiving a degree in math from Northeastern State College, Ross taught math and science until she returned to school to earn her master’s in math from Colorado State College of Education. > [](https://twitter.com/melindagates/status/845991758228008960) ## What were her contributions to aerospace? In 1942, Lockheed Missiles and Space Company hired Ross as mathematician. But after a manager recognized her talent, Ross was sent to UCLA to earn a classification in aeronautical engineering. Lockheed then rehired her as their first female engineer. Ross would go on to work on major projects such as the Agena rocket, which was a crucial step in the Apollo program to land on the moon. She also was a part of SkunkWorks, a top-secret 40-member think tank where she was the only women aside from the secretary. Ross’ work there involved developing initial design concepts for interplanetary space travel, including flyby missions to Venus and Mars. “Often at night there were four of us working until 11 p.m.,” she once said according to Google. “I was the pencil pusher, doing a lot of research. My state of the art tools were a slide rule and a Frieden computer. We were taking the theoretical and making it real.”  Mary G. Ross Courtesy of Evelyn Ross McMillan/Google Doodle ## How did she open the door for women? Ross also devoted herself to encouraging women and Native Americans into careers in the field of STEM. She was a fellow of the [Society of Women Engineers](https://alltogether.swe.org/2018/08/remembering-mary-g-ross-first-american-indian-woman-engineer/), where she established a scholarship in her name to support future female engineers and technologists. To support fellow Native Americans, Ross also worked closely with the American Indian Science and Engineering Society and the Council of Energy Resource Tribes to develop their educational programs. [According](https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2018/nsb20181/report/sections/science-and-engineering-labor-force/women-and-minorities-in-the-s-e-workforce) to the National Science Foundation, only 0.1% of those working in science and engineering are female American Indians. And [according](https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/women-in-architecture-and-engineering-occupations-in-2016.htm) to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 8.1% of employed aerospace engineers are women. Mary G. Ross died on April 29, 2008 at the age of 99. Thursday’s Doodle depicts Ross’ portrait over a blueprint of the Agena rocket with the Earth and stars in the background. ## Transcript >> The Doodle team was able to meet Ira Glass from This American Life, and he was just meeting us for fun. I guess, I'm not even sure why he was here, but we talked about potentially collaborating and they thought that it'd be fun to collaborate with us on Valentine's Day, so I took the lead on this project. >> We do Valentine's Day pretty much every year, and we've done your typical like lovebirds and, you know, flowers and things like that. But Ira and his team are awesome. >> They were able to pull stories that they have collected over the years, they've recorded new stories for us, and they're all about love in all different respects of the word. They sent us maybe 8 or 10 stories and they're all really fun and really sweet. >> The stories run the [ unk ]. There is a story about middle school love. >> I was in the cafeteria, just got on a drink of root beer and she walks up to me. >> There is a story about a new bride who's in doubt that she made a mistake. >> My husband, me and I, we're just so worried, his face I could tell. I said, " Where he could be ," you know, and I-- and I called the police because I thought he got lost or something happened. >> When I first got the audio from Ira, my co- worker and I listened to it together and we wrote down bullet points of where we wanted to have a little drawing come up. >> One of my favorite stories, it involves middle schoolers. We're titling it, " Puppy Love" so true to the title, I just-- I just drew everyone as a dog. >> Each stories are-- containing a little candy heart. >> And when you click on it, the heart will flip, the audio will play and you will also see the images that we've drawn to accompany the phrases. So, now we are all going to brainstorms together because we need the creative side and we also need the technical side to tell us what is possible and what isn't possible. For this one, it's a pretty conservative on the interactive side, because we didn't want to overshadow the audio. When I first started, they were no engineers on the team, we only did static doodles, but since then, we've started doing more animated stuff, more interactive work, and for that we needed a dedicated team. >> Some of our most like ambitious to those have come from engineers that are just incredibly talented and spare similar time for our projects. >> Sometimes the illustrators will come up with an idea that is way too wacky and just not possible yet. The technology hasn't been invented, but sometimes we're too conservative and it's great to have the engineers there to tell us that we can actually be way wackier with our ideas. The relationship with my engineer on this was to just keep my files size at a reasonable capacity, I was getting a little bit ambitious with how many frames I wanted to draw and my engineers said, " Hey, you need to double it ." >> We tried to do as many doodles as we possibly can. We're a pretty small team, relative to how many audiences are out there [ unk ], but yeah, we-- you never know what you're gonna get. And, you know, we keep making more and more of these things. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5362032/google-doodle-mary-g-ross-native-american-engineer/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5362032/google-doodle-mary-g-ross-native-american-engineer/"},"headline":"Google Doodle Celebrates Mary G. Ross. Here's What to Know About the First Native American Woman Engineer","datePublished":"2018-08-09T09:00:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:43:54.479Z","description":"Mary G. 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