Judith Love Cohen

Judith Love Cohen (August 16, 1933 – July 25, 2016) was an American aerospace engineer. She was an electrical engineer on the Minuteman missile, the science ground station for the Hubble Space Telescope, the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, and the Apollo Space Program. In particular, her work on the Abort-Guidance System is credited with helping save Apollo 13. After her retirement from engineering, she founded a children's multimedia publishing company, eventually publishing more than 20 titles before her death in 2016. She was the mother of computer scientist and engineer Neil Siegel and actor-musician Jack Black.
Cohen was born into a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Sarah Cohen (née Roisman) and Morris Bernard Cohen. By fifth grade, her classmates were paying her to do their math homework. She was often the only girl in her math classes, and decided she wanted to become a math teacher. By age 19, she was studying engineering in college, and dancing ballet in the Metropolitan Opera Ballet company in New York.
She received a scholarship to Brooklyn College to major in math, but realized she preferred engineering. After two years at Brooklyn College, Cohen married and moved to California, working as a junior engineer for North American Aviation, attending the University of Southern California (USC) at night; she said that she went through both her BS and MS programs at USC without ever meeting another female engineering student. She received both her bachelor's and master's degrees from USC Viterbi School of Engineering, in 1957 and 1962 respectively, and continued her association with the university, serving as an Astronautical Engineering Advisory board member.
In 1982, she became a graduate of the UCLA Engineering Executive Program.
Cohen's engineering career began in 1952, when she worked as a junior engineer at North American Aviation. After graduation from USC Viterbi School of Engineering in 1957, she went on to work at Space Technology Laboratories. Space Technology Laboratories eventually became TRW (acquired by Northrop Grumman in 2002). She stayed with the company until her retirement in 1990. Her engineering work included work on the guidance computer for the Minuteman missile and the Abort-Guidance System (AGS) in the Apollo Lunar Module. The AGS played an important role in the safe return of Apollo 13 after an oxygen tank explosion left the Service Module crippled and forced the astronauts to use the Lunar Module as a "lifeboat." Supplies of electrical power and water on the LM were limited and the Primary Guidance and Navigation System used too much water for cooling. As a result, after a major LM descent engine burn two hours past its closest approach to the Moon to shorten the trip home, the AGS was used for most of the return, including two mid-course corrections. According to her son Neil:
In 1990, after retiring from practice as an engineer, she began a publishing company called Cascade Pass with her third husband, David Katz. They published two series of books:
Cascade Pass has sold more than 100,000 of their children's books in these two series.
Cascade Pass also published a book called The Women of Apollo (written by Robyn Friend, Cohen's daughter-in-law), which features short biographies of four women who helped put the first man on the moon, Cohen among them.
In the early 1950s, Cohen married fellow engineer Bernard Siegel, whom she met while a freshman in engineering school at Brooklyn College in Brooklyn, New York. They had three children: engineer/scientist Neil Siegel, Howard Siegel, and Rachel Siegel. The couple divorced in the mid-1960s.
Cohen married Thomas "Tom" William Black, who converted to Judaism for her. In 1969, they had a son, actor and musician Jack Black. In a memorial tribute, her son Neil notes that she was troubleshooting problems with schematics on the day she went into labor, called her boss to let him know she had fixed the problem and then delivered Jack. The couple divorced in 1979.
In 1981, Cohen married David A. Katz. They remained married until her death in 2016.
In 1991, Cohen's son Howard died of AIDS at the age of 36.
Cohen died of cancer in 2016.