Witnessing the dawn of the internet! Surviving the Cold War! Ushering in the 21st Century!

In 2004, Mary Young retired after a distinguished research career that began in 1974 at Hughes Research Labs, then part of Hughes Aircraft Company, through the launch of HRL Laboratories, LLC, as we know it today and into to the 21stCentury.

Mary attended Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina where she earned her bachelor’s degree in physics. She then earned a master’s degree in physics at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Mary and her husband moved to California in 1973 and Mary began working at Hughes Research Labs in late January 1974, conducting experiments needed to characterize specially doped silicon for infrared detector arrays.

Selected to receive a Hughes Doctoral Fellowship, in 1977 Mary began a PhD program in the Engineering Department at UCLA with Professor Oscar Stafsudd. After earning her PhD in 1980, Mary rose through the HRL ranks as a member of technical staff, then section head, project manager, and department head. In 1990 she became the first woman lab director at HRL Laboratories, as head of the Chemical Physics Laboratory, later renamed the Sensors and Materials Laboratory.

After retirement, Mary remained on advisory boards with the National Academy of Sciences and the United States Air Force, and on the Board of Visitors at her alma mater, Wake Forest. Mary and her husband travel extensively since their retirement, and they still live in the Malibu area. Mary was kind enough to make time to talk to us about her long and illustrious career at HRL.