Mária Telkes was an American-Hungarian biophysicist and inventor who worked on new ways to use solar energy.
In 1925, she moved to the United States to become a biophysicist. After becoming an American citizen in 1937, she went to work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1939 to find useful ways to use solar energy. As an undergraduate at MIT, Telkes used sodium sulfate to come up with a way to store energy from the sun.
In the 1940s, she and the architect Eleanor Raymond built the first home that was heated by the sun. They did this by storing energy every day. In 1953, they made a solar oven that was safe for children and could be used by people in different latitudes. She came up with a way for farmers to dry out crops.
The first time Telkes got the Society of Women Engineers Achievement Award was in 1952. In 1977, she was given a lifetime achievement award by the National Academy of Sciences Building Research Advisory Board. Telkes filed for more than twenty patents.
Know Maria Telkes’s Biography
Maria Telkes was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1900. She grew up there and went to grade school and high school there. She went on to get a Ph.D. and a B.A. in physical chemistry from Eotvos Lorand University.
When Telkes moved to the United States in 1924, she went to see a family member who was the Hungarian consul in Cleveland, Ohio. She got a job there and started looking into how living things make energy at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
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Telkes worked at the foundation and did the research with the help of George Washington Crile. He made a photoelectric device that could record brain waves. They also wrote the book “Phenomenon of Life” together.
After that, Telkes became a biophysicist at Westinghouse. She asked if the brand-new solar energy program at MIT had any job openings. After being hired, she worked there from 1939 to 1953.
In 1969, Telkes went to work at the University of Delaware’s Institute of Energy Conversion. She started to learn about solar cells that make electricity. She helped build the first home that used solar energy for both heating and electricity in 1971.
She worked with the US Department of Energy in 1981 to design and build Carlisle House in Carlisle, Massachusetts. It was the first home in the world to be powered entirely by solar energy.
At the New York International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists in 1964, she gave a speech.
Maria Telkes Personal Life
Telkes never got married and never had kids, which was unusual for a woman at the time, even if she was a well-known scientist and professor.
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During her seven decades in the United States, she only went back to Hungary once, when she was 95 years old. Her immediate family still lived there. While she was there, she died.
What Is Maria Telkes Net Worth?
Ghgossip.com says that Maria is one of the most famous and wealthy physicists, with a net worth of $1 billion.
After getting her PhD in physical chemistry in her home country of Hungary, she moved to the United States and did research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.