IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2023 - 10

Kit August
An Artist Gone Engineering
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Katherine (Kit) August calls herself
" an artist gone engineering, " and she
is looking to recruit. Trained in communications
design yet having spent
the bulk of her career in laboratories
and research institutes, August has
always moved seamlessly between the
creative and analytical sides of her skill
set. When asked how others can recognize
an aptitude for being both left- and
right-brained, she jokes, " I try to remind
people to bring their entire brain everywhere
they go. "
Although she laughs at that, August
is serious about blending the ideas of artists
and engineers, whether that be in a
single person or, even better, being open
to trying a new way of working in a group
setting. " We have tools in our toolbox that
we use all the time, and there are tools
we can add to that toolbox, " she explains.
" Engineers are taught to optimize a solution,
the one that solves the majority of
the problems, whereas artists will not
be restrained by specifications, instead
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWIE.2023.3311240
Date of current version: 30 October 2023
shifting across solutions, and that gives
latitude to include many more people. "
Referencing some applications for the
blind or hearing-impaired populations,
August continues, " we would not have
certain developments if we were going
only for the most widely applicable
solutions, and that would leave out so
many people. "
Intertwining Art and Engineering
For August, art and engineering have
always been intertwined. Her father
was an electrical engineer who " spoke
out loud what he was thinking, " she
describes, giving her a front row seat
to the techniques of thinking like an
engineer. That, coupled with growing
up during the years the United States
was focused on getting to the moon, led
to the idea of being an astronaut, which
captured her imagination.
At the same time, both her mother
and father were artistic and encouraged
August's talent in that arena. Having
won a city-wide art contest in the first
grade, August knew she was indeed talented.
It was not until later that she
started to understand she might have
to choose because she was getting feedback
that if she wanted to go to university,
she could not study art. " Yet when
I spoke to a guidance counselor about
designing things like spacecraft, I was
advised to go to art school, " she shares.
A friend encouraged her to apply to the
prestigious Parsons School of Design,
" because if they accepted me, then I
would know I really had the right stuff, "
recalls August. She was accepted.
August pursued a bachelor of fine
arts degree in communications design,
relishing in the opportunity to study
with role models such as Cipe Pineles,
Martica Sawin, Lászlo Roth, Alex Katz,
and Philippe Halsman. " I never stopped
paying attention to the connections
between art and technology, and I had
an advantage because I already understood
geometry, chemistry, and other
sciences, " she offers. Through the sewing
and knitting projects she had done
as a young child, August saw the link
to engineering frequently, such as in
3D design or fabric weave technologies
like jacquard.
Building on her aptitude for technology
and anticipating that it might
be tough to get a job coming out of art
school, August next went for a master's
degree in computer science. She took a
job in the human factors department at
Prodigy, a joint venture between CBS,
IBM, and Sears. Next, she had an opportunity
to move to Bell Labs, at the time
a part of AT&T, which seemed like the
perfect fit for both her interests and her
personality. There, she was a member of
the technical staff, first in human factors
and then in advanced communication
technology.
The work August did at Bell Labs was
meant to help people live easier lives.
" I had the privilege of working with
Kit August's award-winning drawing, Lobsters in the Kitchen.
10
IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2023
amazing leaders on various inventions,
including Elizabeth Shriver and Olga
Boric´ -Lubecke, " she shares. One of her
most successful patents is on a technique
of conducting an iterative search
considering a person's communities of
interest to identify and then organize
search results in an order that would
be most relevant in that moment. She
also spent time working on a noncontact
microwave Doppler monitoring and
imaging system, " orthogonal to ultrasound,
but without requiring a device
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