top of page
Button
Year: 2005

Who: Marian Croak

Where: Unknown

What: Marian R. Croak is a pioneering inventor and engineer, renowned for her groundbreaking work in the voice and data communication fields. With over 200 patents to her name, Croak’s most notable achievement is the development of Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, which enables voice communication over the internet instead of traditional telephone lines. This innovation has revolutionized how we connect, making services like Skype, Zoom, and Google Meet possible.

Born in 1955 in New York City, Croak’s fascination with technology began at a young age. She admired the tradespeople who came to fix things around her home, which sparked her desire to "fix things" and improve systems. Encouraged by her high school teachers and her father, who built her a chemistry set, Croak pursued a career in STEM. She earned her undergraduate degree from Princeton University and later completed a doctorate in social psychology and quantitative analysis at the University of Southern California.

Croak’s career at AT&T Bell Laboratories began in 1982, where she worked for over three decades. Recognizing the potential of the internet, she developed the foundational technology for VoIP, predicting its transformative impact on global communication. In addition to VoIP, she contributed to innovations in cellular phone messaging and technology for text-based charitable donations.

Before leaving AT&T in 2014, Croak held the title of Senior Vice President of Applications and Services Infrastructure, overseeing thousands of engineers and managing hundreds of programs. She now serves as a Vice President at Google, where she continues to expand the capabilities of the internet, particularly in underserved regions.

Croak has received numerous accolades, including the Edison Patent Awards and induction into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame. She is also an active philanthropist and enjoys long-distance running.

Sources:


Websites:

  • Bellamy, D. D. (1974). The education of Blacks in Missouri prior to 1861. The Journal of Negro History, 59(2), 143-157. https://doi.org/10.2307/2717326

  • Durst, D. L. (2004). The Reverend John Berry Meachum (1789-1854) of St. Louis: Prophet and Entrepreneurial Black Educator in Historiographical Perspective. The North Star: A Journal of African American Religious History, 7(2), 1-24.

  • Croak, M. R. (1994). Emerging technologies and the messaging market. AT&T Technical Journal, 73(3), 4-6. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6769322

Address

Johns Hopkins University
2800 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218

Email

Connect

  • Spotify
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram
bottom of page