To Maryanne T. (Schiavoni) Schreier, EG '85, electrical engineering comes down to mathematics. And mathematics, at its heart, is problem-solving.

"It's like a puzzle," she says from her home in Downingtown, Pa. And, her talent for puzzling out the solutions to mathematical problems enabled Schreier to contribute to a new technology--one that will revolutionize communications in Asia.

Born and reared in Elsmere, Del., Schreier was the baby sister to four brothers. Her father was a carpenter and her mother was a homemaker. She had an affinity for mathematics at an early age,
and became more interested in the subject while attending high school in nearby Wilmington.

"In 10th grade, I took geometry," she recalls, "and once I got it, I absolutely loved it."

Schreier chose to attend Delaware for its "excellent" engineering program. And, she decided to major in electrical engineering because it "sounded the most mathematical" of the engineering disciplines.

While engineering and mathematics were once looked upon as male preserves, times had changed by the early 1980s.

"I never did encounter resistance," Schreier says, "never any skepticism, although I do remember my first physics class because I was the only girl in the lab."

After graduating from Delaware, Schreier was accepted into the three-year Edison Engineering Program at GE (now Lockheed Martin) in Valley Forge, Pa. During the program, she rotated among four work assignments, while pursuing a master's degree in electrical engineering at Villanova University.

Schreier's primary interest is signal processing. "What's coming out of my mouth right now is a signal," she explains. "You can do different things to different signals. You can alter them or enhance them."

In essence, signal processing is--you guessed it--a mathematical process. It utilizes mathematical formulas known as algorithms to alter or enhance signals for different purposes.

At Lockheed Martin, Schreier has concentrated on satellite communications, which she describes as an "extremely fascinating" realm. "My specialty is communications simulation work," she says. "I build mathematical models of signals being transmitted over satellites to determine how those signals will behave and how to maintain their quality.

"The modeling is all done on computers," Schreier says. "If you're modeling some large portion of a satellite system, you have to figure out what pieces of technology you already have and what pieces you need to build. It's like detective work. You're writing computer code for the purpose of analyzing the quality of signal transmission."

Simulation work "is the closest you can come to building something with your hands without actually building something with your hands," she says.

Thus far, she says, "the culmination of my work as an engineer" is a cellular telephone system now under construction in Asia.

Lockheed Martin was hired to build the Asian Cellular Satellite System (ACES) by a private phone company serving a vast area of Southeast Asia, including Indonesia. That part of the globe includes a good number of the 75 percent of the world's inhabitants "who have never made a phone call," Schreier says.

In a conventional cellular call, the digital signal from the phone is directed to the nearest available tower, which relays that signal to another tower in the geographical area of the number being called.

In the ACES system, a satellite in geostationary orbit (meaning it essentially hovers above the same portion of the Earth) "acts like a cell tower," Schreier explains. While users will operate what looks much like conventional cell phones, the devices send and receive signals directly from the satellite.

Schreier's work involved "helping to come up with the waveform" required to get the signal from the phone to the satellite. "It's very cool," she says, "as exciting as anything I've ever worked on, by far."

The process took from 1996 until 1999. At one point during the testing phase, Schreier was part of what she describes as "a rag-tag team of nine engineers and scientists" who traveled to Florida, Georgia, New York and other sections of the country to test the effects of different environments on the quality of the signal.

It was, Schreier says, "the experience of a lifetime," largely because the testing utilized a recreational vehicle and a blimp. She rode in both.

It was also during the ACES project that she met Nicholas Schreier, an engineer working for an outside consulting firm, who is now her husband.

And, because of her work on the project, Schreier was awarded her first patent. Patent No. 39MP2813 is for "Call-interrupt Coding System for Maximizing Throughput for Cellular Spacecraft TDMA Communications System." In simple terms, Schreier says, it involves "the efficient repackaging of a person's voice during a cell call to allow for other in-call signals needed for activities, such as call-waiting."

The satellite was launched in February, and the system should be operating by the end of the year.

"In late March, I heard the first phone call over the satellite," Schreier says. "I was impressed with its quality. It sounded as good, if not better, than conventional cellular. Our work really made a difference."

In addition to the ACES program, one of Schreier's most cherished accomplishments dates from her undergraduate days at Delaware. In the engineering building, "there's this plaque, and I saw there weren't any women engineers on it," she recalls. "I said to myself, 'Someday, I'm going to get my name on that plaque.'"

She did.

Her name was placed on the plaque in 1985 when she received the Charles B. Evans prize for the highest GPA in engineering that year.

These days, Schreier is a manager at Lockheed. She's in charge of a team of 15 to 20 communications systems engineers involved in everything from research and development to business development.

"Looking back at the last 15 years, I never expected to get this far," she says. "I'm proof that hard work can get you places." And, if she ever decides to leave engineering, "I'd like to be a journalist," Schreier says. "I'd like to write children's stories."

And, there are always teddy bears. "My mom and dad gave me my first one for Christmas in second grade," Schreier says, "and I've loved them ever since."