10 Famous Women in Science
10 Famous Women in Science Women have made meaningful contributions to science, technology, engineering, and math since the start of civilization. Some received welldeserved praise while others were ignored or had their work credited to men. Nonetheless, these women continued to fight for their rightful place in the sciences. Here are just 10 of the countless trailblazers throughout history.
415 Hypatia Hypatia is the earliest recorded female mathematician. She was an ancient Greek scholar who taught math, astronomy, and philosophy. In the year 415, she was murdered by a mob of religious extremists. She has become a symbol for education in the face of ignorance.
1824
1688 Maria Sybilla Merian Maria Sybilla Merian is one of the greatest scientific illustrators of all time. She was particularly fascinated by butterfly metamorphosis. In 1688, 52-yearold Maria set out into the rain forests of South America to document never-before-seen insects.
Mary Anning Mary Anning collected fossils to sell to tourists to make ends meet. In the process, she made some of the most important fossil discoveries in history. In 1824, she found the first complete Plesiosaur skeleton, leading to the creation of a new genus. Many of her fossil discoveries ended up in museums with no credit to Mary.
1911
Marie Curie Marie Curie was a Polish-born French physicist and chemist and the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. In 1911, she won her second Nobel Prize for discovering two new elements: Polonium and Radium. She developed the theory of radioactivity and was the first to study the treatment of tumors with radioactive isotopes.
1948 Maria Mayer Maria Mayer studied nuclear structure. In 1948, she published what would be a Nobel Prizewinning paper describing what we now know as the Nuclear Shell Model. Despite having a PhD, Maria conducted much of her research as a lab volunteer because of nepotism rules that prevented her from being hired as a professor until later in life.
1963 Valentina Tereshkova Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space. In 1963 she orbited Earth 48 times aboard the Vostok 6. Before travelling to space, Valentina was a textile worker who parachuted in her spare time - the hobby that led to her recruitment into the Russian space program. She has since become a cosmonaut engineer.
Sources http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Hypatia.html http://www.botanicalartandartists.com/about-maria-sibylla-merian.html http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/anning.html https://cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/physicians/biography_35.html https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200808/physicshistory.cfm https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1903/marie-curie-bio.html http://www.women-inventors.com/Hedy-Lammar.asp “Study Corner – Gombe Timeline”. Jane Goodall Institute. 2010. Retrieved 28 July 2010 https://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level2/tereshkova.html.
1849 Elizabeth Blackwell In 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to graduate from medical school in North America. Because she was a woman, she was constantly denied physician jobs and banned from conferences. She started her own infirmary for women and children, revolutionized women in medicine, and published many books on the issue.
1942 Hedy Lamarr Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian hollywood actress. On top of being considered the most beautiful woman in the world, she was a part-time inventor. In 1942, she collaborated with George Anthiel to develop “Spread Spectrum Technology”: a secret communication system used to combat Nazis in World War II and later used to develop Wi-Fi.
1960 Jane Goodall In 1960, then 26-year-old British primatologist Jane Goodall started her famous studies of the social and family life of wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. She has since changed everything we know about our closest relatives in the Animal Kingdom and founded one of the largest global conservation groups.
2009
Elizabeth Blackburn Elizabeth Blackburn is a molecular biologist at the University of California San Francisco. In 2009, she won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her pioneering work in the complex processes of aging.
415 Hypatia Hypatia is the earliest recorded female mathematician. She was an ancient Greek scholar who taught math, astronomy, and philosophy. In the year 415, she was murdered by a mob of religious extremists. She has become a symbol for education in the face of ignorance.
1824
1688 Maria Sybilla Merian Maria Sybilla Merian is one of the greatest scientific illustrators of all time. She was particularly fascinated by butterfly metamorphosis. In 1688, 52-yearold Maria set out into the rain forests of South America to document never-before-seen insects.
Mary Anning Mary Anning collected fossils to sell to tourists to make ends meet. In the process, she made some of the most important fossil discoveries in history. In 1824, she found the first complete Plesiosaur skeleton, leading to the creation of a new genus. Many of her fossil discoveries ended up in museums with no credit to Mary.
1911
Marie Curie Marie Curie was a Polish-born French physicist and chemist and the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. In 1911, she won her second Nobel Prize for discovering two new elements: Polonium and Radium. She developed the theory of radioactivity and was the first to study the treatment of tumors with radioactive isotopes.
1948 Maria Mayer Maria Mayer studied nuclear structure. In 1948, she published what would be a Nobel Prizewinning paper describing what we now know as the Nuclear Shell Model. Despite having a PhD, Maria conducted much of her research as a lab volunteer because of nepotism rules that prevented her from being hired as a professor until later in life.
1963 Valentina Tereshkova Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space. In 1963 she orbited Earth 48 times aboard the Vostok 6. Before travelling to space, Valentina was a textile worker who parachuted in her spare time - the hobby that led to her recruitment into the Russian space program. She has since become a cosmonaut engineer.
Sources http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Hypatia.html http://www.botanicalartandartists.com/about-maria-sibylla-merian.html http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/anning.html https://cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/physicians/biography_35.html https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200808/physicshistory.cfm https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1903/marie-curie-bio.html http://www.women-inventors.com/Hedy-Lammar.asp “Study Corner – Gombe Timeline”. Jane Goodall Institute. 2010. Retrieved 28 July 2010 https://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level2/tereshkova.html.
1849 Elizabeth Blackwell In 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to graduate from medical school in North America. Because she was a woman, she was constantly denied physician jobs and banned from conferences. She started her own infirmary for women and children, revolutionized women in medicine, and published many books on the issue.
1942 Hedy Lamarr Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian hollywood actress. On top of being considered the most beautiful woman in the world, she was a part-time inventor. In 1942, she collaborated with George Anthiel to develop “Spread Spectrum Technology”: a secret communication system used to combat Nazis in World War II and later used to develop Wi-Fi.
1960 Jane Goodall In 1960, then 26-year-old British primatologist Jane Goodall started her famous studies of the social and family life of wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. She has since changed everything we know about our closest relatives in the Animal Kingdom and founded one of the largest global conservation groups.
2009
Elizabeth Blackburn Elizabeth Blackburn is a molecular biologist at the University of California San Francisco. In 2009, she won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her pioneering work in the complex processes of aging.
