Pioneering Imperial academic among women engineers named in national biography

For nearly 30 years, Letitia Chitty was a member of the Civil Engineering Department and now features in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Chitty began her studies in mathematics at The University of Cambridge in 1916, but was inspired to switch to studying engineering after spending the war investigating experimental aircraft for the Royal Flying Corps (later RAF). In 1934 Chitty was appointed as a research assistant in the Civil Engineering Department at Imperial and worked on solutions for plane stress problems and suspension cables. That same year, Chitty became the first woman Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. Chitty was appointed as a lecturer in civil engineering at Imperial in 1943 and during the Second World War investigated submarine hull stresses and underwater explosions. Her major work focused on dams and arches. Anne Barrett, the College's archivist who wrote Chitty's entry, notes that Chitty appreciated good design, and "collaborated with creators of structures to ensure that a pleasing and serviceable structure resulted." Letitia Chitty was unique in all respects, a brilliant mathematician and structural engineer, known within Imperial as a highly regarded, if eccentric, member of College.