Marilyn Levy (April 3, 1922 – June 19, 2014) was an American chemist and inventor based at

Fort Monmouth Fort Monmouth is a former installation of the Department of the Army in Monmouth County, New Jersey. The post is surrounded by the communities of Eatontown, Tinton Falls and Oceanport, New Jersey, and is located about from the Atlantic Ocean. Th ...

. She was awarded the United States Army's

Meritorious Civilian Service Award The Meritorious Civilian Service Award is commonly the highest award granted by U.S. Army Commanders (Major General and above, or civilian equivalent). The Award and Medal is provided to civilian employees within agencies of the federal governmen ...

in 1971.

Early life

Marilyn Levy was born in New York City, the daughter of Moses (Morris) Levy and Rachel (Rae) Levy. Both of her parents were Jewish and also born in New York. She attended

Hunter College High School Hunter College High School is a secondary school located in the Carnegie Hill neighborhood on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It is administered by Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY). Hunter is publicly funded, and there i ...

and

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

, completing a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1942. She pursued graduate studies in chemistry at the

Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn The New York University Tandon School of Engineering (commonly referred to as Tandon) is the engineering and applied sciences school of New York University. Tandon is the second oldest private engineering and technology school in the United Sta ...

Career

Beginning in 1953, Levy worked as a chemist at Fort Monmouth, where she "received international acclaim as a pioneer and as an expert in photographic research". She held more than twenty patents on film developing processes. She was head of the Photo Optics Technical Area (POTA), Combat Surveillance and Target Acquisition Laboratory, and the first woman in the United States Army Electronics Command (ECOM) to reach grade GS-15. She retired in 1979. In 1971, Levy received the Army's Meritorious Civilian Service Award. In 1973, she received the Army Research and Development Achievement Award. She was nominated twice for the

Federal Woman's Award The Federal Woman's Award, also known as the Federal Women's Award, was given by the United States Civil Service Commission from 1961 until 1976. The Federal Woman's Award was established by Barbara Bates Gunderson in 1960, while she was serving on ...

, but did not receive that honor. She was a member of the

Royal Photographic Society The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, commonly known as the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), is one of the world's oldest photographic societies. It was founded in London, England, in 1853 as the Photographic Society of London with ...

, the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all d ...

, and Society of Photographic Scientists and Engineers. She served on the editorial board of the ''Journal of Applied Photographic Engineering'' and ''Photographic Science and Engineering''.

Patents

Marilyn Levy patented several photographic processes, methods, and materials during her work for the American military, including: * ''Photothermographic substance'' (1956), with Heinz Schulze * ''Sensitizer for photothermographic substances'' (1956) * ''Monobaths containing sodium polyacrylate and polyvinyl-pyrrolidone'' (1965) * ''Viscous processing solution'' (1966) * ''Photographic processing apparatus'' (1966), with Seymour L. Hersh * ''Image forming material and method of forming an image therefrom'' (1971) * ''Color printing method'' (1972) * ''Curve analysis method in color photography'' (1976) * ''Filter pack correction method in color photography'' (1979), with Milan Schwartz * ''Reconnaissance/surveillance system utilizing color signature of target'' (granted 1979), with Vincent W. Ball * ''Method and apparatus for manufacturing masked motion picture film for simulated target practice'' (1981), with Seymour L. Hersh

Personal life

A longtime resident of

Little Silver, New Jersey Little Silver is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Monmouth County, New Jersey, Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 6,131, an increase of 181 (+3.0%) from the 2010 Unite ...

, Levy died in 2014, aged 92 years, in

Red Bank, New Jersey Red Bank is a borough in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. Incorporated in 1908, the community is on the Navesink River, the area's original transportation route to the ocean and other ports. Red Bank is in the New York Metropolitan A ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Levy, Marilyn 1922 births 2014 deaths People from Little Silver, New Jersey People from Red Bank, New Jersey American women chemists 20th-century American chemists Hunter College alumni Hunter College High School alumni 21st-century American women 20th-century American women scientists Scientists from New Jersey