UCLA Engineering: UCLA Engineer Magazine

Engineering's First Female Graduate Active in Archeology

Barbara Pritzkat BS ’48 on an archeological dig.

Barbara (Wynn) Pritzkat, the first woman to graduate from what was then the UCLA College of Engineering could have been a graduate of UC Berkeley.

“After finishing our junior year, we learned that we would need to transfer to Berkeley for our senior year since UCLA did not have the necessary lab equipment,” recalled Pritzkat, BS ’48. “When we finished, we could choose to receive our degrees from either UC Berkeley or UCLA. I chose UCLA. I spent a lot of time here growing up and considered it almost like my backyard.”

Since graduating, Pritzkat has worked for Northrop and North American, raised a family, and served as a surveyor on more than 20 archeological digs

While at UCLA, Pritzkat specialized in mechanical and aeronautical studies, although like other students in the College of Engineering, she received a broad engineering education under Dean L.M.K. Boelter’s leadership.

“It was the right field for me and I enjoyed it, although we worked very hard. I had seen Amelia Earhart take off from Burbank when I was younger, and I found it very inspiring,” she recalled. “I remember professor George Tauxe, who taught mechanics, was such a good teacher.”

After finishing her studies, Pritzkat interviewed at several firms in the aircraft industry before accepting a position at Northrop, where she could work near Jack Northrop and the Flying Wing. She spent the summer of 1948 in Europe before starting at Northrop in the fall.

“I was in the stress department, working mostly on calculations, and that was where I met my husband, a gifted stress and structures engineer,” she said. “I really benefited from the broad education laid out by Boelter.”

Following a downturn in the aerospace industry, she was laid off from Northrop in 1949 and moved to North American as a technical writer, where she found her niche. She continued as a technical writer, moving back to work at Northrop until 1955.

“I took my work very seriously and enjoyed it, but wasn’t a dedicated careerist. I was good at technical writing and could have stayed with it if I had wanted to,” noted Pritzkat. “But I always knew I’d get married and have children. I still consider myself an engineer - I think like one.”

In the 1960s, she and a friend enrolled in a UC correspondence course in ancient art, studying Greek, Roman, and Egyptian art. Later, with her children nearly finished with school, Pritzkat entered the UCLA Extension program to earn a certificate in archeology.

“I was delighted to get back into scientific studies, as well as the other aspects of archeology,” she said. “I wrote my qualifying paper on papyrus and knew that my interest lay in the old world, not the new.”

Pritzkat went on to study Arabic and set off on her first dig in Syria in 1983 with Giorgio and Marilyn Buccellati. Since she had studied surveying as an engineering student, Pritzkat opted to specialize in archeological surveying.

“Since 1983, I have missed only one season, during the Gulf War,” she said. “I have worked in Jordan, Carthage, and Syria, and am leaving again in August for another dig in Syria.”

Pritzkat entered UCLA in 1944 as a physics/meteorology major after graduating from Hamilton High School in Los Angeles.

“I was interested in and good in math and science, but career counseling was not as evolved as it is now,” said Pritzkat. “I came to UCLA and took the basics - chemistry, physics, math - and was ready to switch to engineering when Dean Boelter arrived.”

- Marlys Amundson

Photo courtesy Barbara Pritzkat