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“Irmgard Flügge-Lotz - Engineer & Creator of the Lotz-Method
In celebration of International Women’s Day, we’re sharing portraits of some pioneering women in STEM.
Irmgard Lotz was born in Hamelin, Germany on July 16th, 1903. During World War...

Irmgard Flügge-Lotz - Engineer & Creator of the Lotz-Method
In celebration of International Women’s Day, we’re sharing portraits of some pioneering women in STEM.
Irmgard Lotz was born in Hamelin, Germany on July 16^th, 1903. During World War I when her father was stationed in Belgium, Lotz supported her family by tutoring students in mathematics and Latin. She earned her doctorate in engineering in 1929, and started working as a junior research engineer at Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt in Göttingen, Germany.
In 1931, Lotz solved a tricky problem for calculating the span-wise (wingtip to wingtip) distribution of a wing’s lifting force. This became known as the “Lotz Method.” In 1938 she married a civil engineer named Wilhelm Flügge, and changed her last name to Flügge-Lotz. There were obstacles to career advancement for her husband, due to his anti-Nazi views, and Irmgard had no opportunity for an academic career simply because of her gender.
During World War II, the couple evacuated Berlin, eventually landing in America. Wilhelm was given the position of professor of engineering at Stanford University, while Irmgard was only given the title of “lecturer of engineering and mechanics and research supervisor,” which came with similar responsibilities. It wasn’t until 1960 that she became Stanford’s first female engineering professor. There, she worked on pioneering what she called “discontinuous automatic control,” the foundation for automatic on-off aircraft control systems in jets. In 1970, Lotz became the first woman to receive a fellowship of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.