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Microwaves101 is proud to sponsor a monetary award at the Automated RF & Microwave Measurement Society (ARMMS), a bi-yearly conference in the UK, for the best female presenter. The award is named in honor of Katharine Franck Huettner, you can read her story below.
The KFH award is made twice a year at the April and November conferences. We have a new KFH winner for November 2025!
17-18 November 2025 ARMMS Conference Winner
Dr. Samira Driad of United Monolithic Semiconductor won the Katherine Franck Huettner award for Best Female Presenter for her paper, "A 0.1um GaN-on-SiC technology: Qualification and perspectives at high frequencies". Here's the abstract:
UMS has developed a new generation of GaN-on SiC technology identified as GH10-10. Promising performance, good device robustness and reduced memory effect were achieved with a combination of process and device optimization. Large signal measurements were performed at 18 GHz, 30GHz, 45 GHz and 60 GHz. The results at 45 GHz have shown more than 46% of PAE, 11dB linear gain and 2.5W.mm-1 output power. At 60 GHz, a maximum PAE of 31-33% is obtained. The nonlinear electrical model accuracy is proven with the HPA designed at Q-Band and showing promising results.
The full abstract for this and other session papers are available here. The full paper will be posted to the ARMMS website eventually.
Editor's note: a 0.1μm GaN process is magical for a lot of interesting applications, and having an accurate large-signal model at Q-Band unlocks its potential to users. It's no picnic gathering data for such a model! It's great to see a European fab put an American fab (starts with "Q") on notice as to how this is done!
Brava to Dr. Driad!
28-29 April 2025 ARMMS Conference Winner
Dr. Rucha Smith, who works for Slipstream, won the KFH for her presentation on:
- "Design aspects of a wideband RF Front-end for an Adaptable Radio Platform"
- The full abstract is available here.
- The full paper will be posted eventually.
Brava again!
18-19 November 2024 ARMMS Conference Winner
The very first KFH award went to Dr. Fatemeh Hoveizavi, who works for EDRMedeso, for her talk on:
- "From Automation to AI: Optimising Phased Array Antenna Design with PYAEDT and HFSS"
- The full abstract is available here.
- The full paper will be posted eventually.
Brava!
We will keep adding names to this page as awards are made. The next conference will be in April 2026, at "To Be Announced".
Below we we will provide a little background on the namesake for this award.
Early life of Katharine Franck Huettner
Ms. Franck was born in Beijing China in 1923, while her father was authoring a travel book. Her childhood nickname "Hsiao Mei-Mei" (little sister) stuck with her for life, answering to Hsiao to all her parents, brothers and sister, cousins, etc. During elementary school she lived in France long enough so that she became proficient in the French language for life. She attended Westover School in Middlebury Connecticut. Westover was founded in 1909 and remains to this day an all-women's (and pricy) grade 9 to 12 school.
College years
Ms. Franck earned her Bachelor of Science in Physics at Bryn Mawr, an all-women's college in PA. She lived in the "French house" (Wyndham Hall) where the use of English in conversations was highly discouraged. After receiving her BS in 1944, she moved on to MIT, and earned her MS in Physics (1948) there. Her goal of earning a PhD was not in the cards, as according to family legend, an MIT professor tweaked his grading system to put her just below the curve, and her father decided that was enough of this investment.
MIT was a hotbed of research during WWII, especially at the "Rad Lab", organized by Vannevar Bush. But the college wasn't exactly all ponies and rainbows. Learn more about MIT's history of misogyny, here.
Research during WWII
Taking time out from her studies, Ms. Franck joined the team at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in developing the VT proximity fuze. That research product altered the course of the war for sure, as chronicled on HistoryNet. Here is a brief "Microwaves101" description of that effort, and photos of an actual fuze that was autographed by the staff.
Engineer
Ms. Franck took a job at Airborne Instruments Laboratories in Mineola (Long Island) New York, one of two women in a staff of 150. Long Island has a storied history of technology developments, starting with Marconi picking it for the site of the United States first radio station in 1902. The New York Daily News profiled them in an article on October 3, 1949. Here is an excerpt from that article. Note the extensive use of engineering terminology from that era, such as blue-eyed, pretty, gal, skirt, sweater, tall, slim, vivacious, athletic, "biggest assets"...
2 Girls Skilled in Engineering Disagree It’s a Job for Women
Blue-eyed Katharine Franck, a graduate engineer but looking like a pretty college gal in her checked skirt and white sweater, considers engineering a fine field for women. And if she had to choose a career again, it would be, she vows, the same – engineering.
Marie Jameson, tall, slim and vivacious, does not agree completely with her co-worker. She thinks there are still disadvantages for a woman engineer. And if she had to choose a career again, it might be engineering – then again, maybe not.
“It would all depend,” says Miss Jameson, who holds a BA degree in math from Wellesley College. “The war threw me into engineering. Girls were going into it and I was offered a job in engineering.”
Work in Mineola Laboratory
Putting aside any ifs or buts, both today are handling jobs as skilled engineers, doing unusual work for women, in the Airborne Instruments Laboratory, Mineola, Nassau, which is devoted chiefly to engineering of electronic system and devices.
Intricate Circuit Tests
Miss Jameson, doing chiefly antennae work, frequently has to make 75-100 foot climbs, weather regardless, in summer sun or winter cold. Athletic, she takes these in her stride.
Miss Franck, taking time out from her present problem of making intricate circuiting performance tests, finds patience one of her biggest assets. "My main·problem now is keeping all the different gadgets—each one feeds into the next one—running at the same time,” she explained.
Both girls will take part in the industrial exposition to be held tomorrow to Wednesday at Roosevelt Field in connection with the Nassau County Golden Jubilee celebration.
The exposition, at which the Airborne Instruments Laboratory will have an exhibit depicting a phase of the Berlin air lift operation, will be put on by the Long Island Association in cooperation with the county, the New York State Department of Commerce and other groups. Key industries in the county will have exhibits.
Here is a photo of "Katharine Franck, gal engineer" from the article, and here is a scan of the article itself.
Later life
It did not take long for Ms. Franck to gain the attention of an engineer with the last name Huettner, and they married in 1950. Before the decade was over they had five children, and she put up with her husband building his own house on weekends in New Jersey. She left her job for two reasons, first and foremost to become a full-time mother. Secondly, it became apparent to management at Airborne Instruments that a specific engineering couple at the company were pulling down more wages than the president of the company, and they could not have that! Imagine how far we've come, now that CEOs earn an average of 290X the pay of the average worker.
By the 1970s Ms. Huettner decided to go back to work, primarily to help out with the college bills of her family (four bachelor's degrees, three master's degrees and one woman-owned PhD and not a single student loan.) After being out of the engineering workforce she went in a different direction, and earned enough college credits at night school to become the head librarian of the local high school.
She died in 2016 at 83 years old. She never owned a car that didn't have a stick-shift transmission.