Hyla Napadensky

 

Hyla Napadensky, age 92, was born in Chicago, Illinois on November 12, 1929, and died in Madison, Wisconsin on March 19, 2022. Hyla was raised in humble surroundings in Chicago, the middle daughter of Russian emigrants who had settled in Toronto, Ontario and Chicago, Illinois.

Hyla defied both family and community expectations by graduating from high school at age 15 and studying math and physics at the Illinois Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago and the U of C’s Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. Although Hyla wanted to explore music and art, after growing up running the family greeting card store with her older sister during their father’s hospitalizations, she decided to study a field that would lift her out of poverty. She graduated from the University of Chicago with a Master’s degree in Math so she could become an engineer and scientist.

Hyla talked of rationing meals of salami or peanut butter while studying under and working alongside Nobel Prize winners Enrico Fermi, creator of the world’s first nuclear reactor and theoretical astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, and other luminaries including “the father of modern planetary science” Gerard Kuiper, and her Yerkes office mate Nancy Roman, the first Chief of Astronomy in NASA’s Office of Space Science and nicknamed the Mother of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Hyla’s first job after college was designing tractor engines for International Harvester. While working there, inspired by Enrico Fermi’s lectures at the U of C, she “borrowed” the accounting department’s new 1950’s rudimentary computer to create a program to calculate various solutions to gearing problems, which was probably the first application of computers to support motor vehicle design.

Hyla went to work for Illinois Institute of Technology’s Research Institute in 1957, creating a new department for explosives and propellant safety and formed her own company in 1988, Napadensky Energetics. Some of the varied projects she supported included studying the effect of explosions on snow load in Greenland in 1961, developing Regulatory Guidelines for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, working to prevent explosions at offshore oil platforms, developing safety protocols for air bag manufacturing plants and NASA space shuttles before the Challenger explosion.

In 1984, Hyla received the honor of being the eleventh woman elected to the National Academy of Engineering for developing “experimental and analytical models of propellant and explosive sensitivity to initiation of detonation by low-velocity impact.” She remained active in her field leading reviews of scientific reports for the Academy until age 88.

Hyla met her husband Arnold in Chicago. They traveled to Caracas, Venezuela in 1956 to meet Arnold’s family and get married. The judge performed the ceremony in the inner courtyard of the jail next to his office. Hyla always assumed they married, as both the marriage ceremony and marriage license were entirely in Spanish. Hyla and Arnold raised their two daughters in Chicago and Evanston, Illinois.

In 1994, Hyla and Arnie retired to their home on Lake Superior near Grand Marais, Minnesota. She was known as a “rocket scientist” and mentored many middle school students in the Future Cities Program, led presentations for the local Great Decisions foreign policy association discussion group, joined the volunteer income tax preparers, and volunteered as a board member for various community organizations including Library Friends, Education Foundation, Health Care Foundation, Cook County Local Energy Project, and WTIP Community Radio.

Hyla is survived by daughter Lita, Lita’s partner Char Arner and their daughter Olivia Napadensky; daughter Yafa, Yafa’s husband Bob Shannon and their daughter Maya Shannon; nieces, nephews and extended family in the United States and Israel.

A memorial gathering will be held near Grand Marais, Minnesota at a later date. In lieu of flowers, memorials are preferred to Care Partners of Cook County, Cook County Human Services In-Home- Support Program, or WTIP Community Radio, all in Grand Marais, Minnesota. Memorials and cards can be sent to Hyla Napadensky Family, PO Box 149, Grand Marais, MN 55604-0149.