Women
Briana Kaying Chen
🔬 Neurobiology
- has been a Postdoc researcher at Columbia University Irving Medical Center since 2022
- was a coxswain of the women's rowing team at MIT
- is passionate about music, needlepoint, & reading
- is a SciSub writer & social media head
Born: Unknown
Country: USA
Education: MIT BS Brain & Cognitive Sciences 2016; Columbia University MA 2018, MPhil 2018 & PhD 2022, all in Neurobiology & Behavior
Anne Chiang
🎬 Thin-film Transistors
🔬 Physical chemistry
- her research and development work on flat panel displays, semiconductor devices, and optical/magnetic recording has been applied industry-wide
- today’s light weight, radiation-free, space- and energy-efficient, portable flat panel display personal computers are a direct result of her work, which also helps to enable the development of today’s high performance, pocket-sized, portable communication systems
- since 2002 a principal of Chiang Consulting, a privately owned company that she formed in Cupertino, California; 12 patents found
Born: 1942
Country: Taiwan
Education: National Taiwan University BS 1964 Physical Chemistry; USC PhD 1969 Physical chemistry
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Julia Carolyn (Nee McWilliams) Child
🔬 Food Sciences
- maternal grandfather was Byron Curtis Weston
- mother was heiress of Weston Paper Co.
- attended boarding school for high school
- played tennis, golf & basketball
- hoped to be a novelist of magazine writer after college
- didn't learn to cook until she met her future husband & they married in 1946
- joined OSS (Office of Strategic Services & forerunner of CIA) in 1942 after she was rejected from the WACs (Women's Army Corps) & US Navy's WAVES for being too tall(was 6'2")
- worked as a top-secret researcher for OSS head General William J. Donovan
- her complete OSS file was declassified in 2008 & is available on line
- her husband Paul worked for OSS & then transferred to the Foreign Service US Information Agency in 1948 & was assigned to Paris
- attended Le Cordon bleu while her husband worked
- diagnised with breast cancer in mid-1960s & had a mastectomy in 1968
- her husband designed her kitchen to accommodate for her height & it was the setting for 3 of her TV shows
- her kitchen is on dispolay at the Smothsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, DC & her copper pots & pans were added to the display in 2009
- in 2001 she moved to an assisted living home in California & donated her Massachusetts home & office to Smith college
- the College later sold the home & office & used the money to erect a campus center named after her
- there is a hybrid, butter colored rose named after her
- appeared on a 2014 US Postage stamp as part of the "Celebrity Chefs Forever" series
- initially was paid $50 per episode of The French Chef
- carried a large canvas satchel she called the "sacrd bag" that contained cooking utensils she couldn't live without like her pastry cutting wheel, her favorite flour scoop, & her knives among other things & only trusted a few people with its care
- was a member of the Grass Cops in college charged with keeping people off the lawns on campus
- was fired from her first job doing secretarial duties at W. J. Sloane (a home furnishings company) for insubordination over a mix-up with a document
- loved French onion soup & it was her last meal
- loved butter & 753 pounds of it were used on her show "Baking With Julia"
- once attributed her longevity to "red meat & gin"
- took 9 years to perfect the recipes in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" & getting it published
Born: 1912
Country: USA
Education: Smith College BA History 1934; Le Cordon Bleu
May Edward Chinn
⚕️ Medicine
- none
Born: 1896
Country: USA
Education: 1921, BS Science, Columbia University s Teacher College; 1926, MD Bellevue Hospital Medical College; 1933, MS Public Health, Columbia University
Joanne Chory
🔬 Plant Biology
🔍 Genetics
- is of Lebanese descent
- is 1 of 6 children
- was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in 2004 & had a brain implant to help regulate her movements
- her early career interest was microbiology
- joined Salk Institute in 1988
- is an adjunct professor at UC San Diego
- holds 12 patents
Born: 1955
Country: USA
Education: Oberlin College AB Biology; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign PhD Microbiology; Postdoc work at Harvard University Medical School
Uma Chowdhry
🔬 Polymer Science
- joined DuPont in 1977 as a research assistant & rose through the company in various positions culminating in her role as Senior VP & Global chief Science & Technology Officer, retiring in 2010
- enjoyed travel, classical music, collecting ceramic art, walking, reading & fusion food
- as a child was determined to win a Nobel Prize
- left India with $8 in her pockets to continue her studies in the US, eventually becoming a citizen
- attended British missionary schools in India
- married for love & against the wishes of her father
- although numerous sources note she holds over 20 patents from her work at DuPont only 1 was located
Born: 1947
Country: India
Education: University of Bombay (now University of Mumbai) BS Physics & Mathematics 1968; Caltech MS Engineering Science 1970; MIT PhD Materials Science 1976
Elizabeth "Liz" P. Clayborne
⚕️ Medicine
- 2023 NasaClip received at total of $750,000 in start-up investments from Maryland’s Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO), an independent entity created by the Maryland General Assembly in 1998 to help support business and economic opportunities across the state
- in high school was the 1st female kicker on an all-male football team
- designed her own major in college
- holds 5 patents
Born: Unknown
Country: USA
Education: Duke University BA Biomedics/Medical Ethics & Religion 2005; Case Western Reserve University MD/MA Bioethics/Medical Ethics 2011; George Washington University Emergency Medical Residency 2011-2015
Terica Clewis
🔬 Data Science
- is an artist and loves to paint portraits for her private art collection
- is a certified Scrum master and a certified UI/UX Designer
Born: Unknown
Country: USA
Education: American Military University BBA 2012 & is a Master's candidate currently
Kim M. Cobb
🔬 Climate Science
- was originally a pre-med student & intended to become a physician
- has appeared on the Showtime documentary "years of Living Dangerously"
- 2022 appointed Director of Institute at Brown for Environment & Society (IBES) an academic hub for scholars exploring the interactions between natural, human & social systems
- was 1 of the lead authors of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 6th Assessment Report published 2021
- has sailed on numerous oceanographic cruises & caving expeditions in the Borneo rainforests to study climate change
- spent 2 years at CalTech in the Dept of Geological & Planetary Sciences
- joined the faculty at Georgia Tech in 2004 & served as faculty director of the Global Change Program & ADVANCE professor for diversity, equity, & inclusion for the College of Sciences
- ran cross country in high school & Yale University
- is a licensed & certified scientific diving-SCUBA
Born: 1974
Country: USA
Education: Yale University BA Biology & Geology 1996; UCSD Scripps Institute of Oceanography PhD Oceanography 2022
Jewel Plummer Cobb
🔬 Biology
🔬 cancer researcher
📚 educator
- Discovered how skin cells produce melanin & how they become cancerous
- Created programs to support students interested in pursuing graduate degrees
- She & her mother earned college degrees in the same year
- Obtained funding for the 1st on campus student residence at California State University Fullerton
- Increased the enrollment of women of color in sciences at numerous colleges
- Discovered methotrexate was effective in treating certain skin & lung cancers & childhood leukemia
- 1st Black female appointed to the National Science Board
- Helped form NSF's Committee on Women & Minorities in Science
- 1st Black Dean of Connecticut College
Born: 1924
Country: USA
Education: Talladega College, BA Biology, 1944; New York University, MS 1947, PhD 1950, Cell Physiology
Mildred Cohn
🔬 Biochemistry
⚛️ biophysics
🔍 Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging
- none
Born: 1913
Country: USA
Education: Hunter College, BA Chemistry 1931; Columbia University, MS Chemistry 1932 & PhD Physical Chemistry 1938
Rebecca Cole
⚕️ Medicine
- none
Born: 1846
Country: USA
Education: Institute for Colored Youth, 1863; Women s Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1867
Lynn Ann Conway
⚛️ Electrical Engineering
💻 Computer Science
✊ Transgender activist
- Is a transgender activist
- While working at IBM in the 1960s invented generalized dynamic instruction handling
- Initiated the Mead-Conway VLSI chip design revolution in very large scale integration (VLSI) microchip design
- 1968, was fired by IBM after revealing her intention to transition; IBM apologized in 2020
- After transition in 1968, took a new name & identity & restarted her career
- 1973, joined Xerox PARC & founded the "multiproject wafers" (MPW)
- Revolutionalized chip design & chip tools
- 2012, IEEE published a special issue of IEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine devoted to her career
- Went public with her transgender story in 2000; maintains a website to support others in their transition by providing medical information, maintaining lists of successful transgender people, providing news related to transgender issues & transgender & transexual issues in general
- Was a cast member in the 1st all-transgender performance of The Vagina Monologues in LA in 2004
- Holds 5 patents
Born: 1938
Country: USA
Education: MIT, Physics, 1955-59; Columbia University, BS 1962 & MSEE 1963, Electrical Engineering
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Esther Marly (or Marley) Conwell
⚛️ Physics
- held four patents and published more than 270 papers and multiple textbooks
- first woman to win IEEE Edison Award
- was walking when she was struck by her neighbor's car as he was backing out of his driveway & died of her injuries
- was still actively doing research at age 92 when she died
- was known to her colleagues for her unwavering devotion to her ballet lessons every Friday morning and her preparation of popcorn all day, every day, at the office
- the Conwell-Weisskopf theory, and Conwell’s master's thesis, were classified during World War II, and only made public in the late 1940s
- was married to the novelist, Abraham Rothberg
- loved dancing, cooking, exercising and spending time with her family
- 1998 was a full-time professor at University of Rochester & studied the flow of electrons through DNA
- was hired at Western Electric as an assistant engineer but payrolldidn't have a code for a female assistant engineer so she was reclassified as an engineer's assistant & her pay was drastically cut to accommodate the existing code
- 1952-72 was a staff member at Sylvania which then became GTE Laboratories
- 1981-98 was a research fellow at XeroxWilson Research Center
Born: 1922
Country: USA
Education: Brooklyn College 1942; University of Rochester M.S., 1945; University of Chicago Ph.D., 1948-all degrees in Physics
Kizzmekia Shanta Corbett
🔍 Immunology
🔬 Microbiology
- Helped develop the Moderna COVID vaccine
- Is a voice for awareness of racial health disparities & encourages trust in science
- Her boss at NIAID, Dr. Anthony Fauci, called her "a rising star"
- Her research focuses on viral diseases including dengue, RSV, & MERS
- Volunteers at schools encouraging kids, especially minority ones, to pursue careers in STEM
- As a postdoc, studied dengue in Sri Lanka
- Made videos about COVID for Michelle Obama's Instagram account during the pandemic
- 1st African-American female to head an NIH vaccine development team
- Holds 3 patents
Born: 1986
Country: USA
Education: University of Maryland-Baltimore County, BSc Biological Sciences 2008; UNC Chapel Hill, PhD Microbiology & Immunology 2014
Gerti Radnitz Cori
🔬 Biochemistry
- 3rd female to win a Nobel Prize in science & 1st female awarded a Nobel in Physiology or Medicine (1947)
- Was named after an Austrian warship
- She & her husband, Carl Ferninand Cori, were the 3rd married couple awarded a Nobel
- At 16, decided she wanted to be a doctor but lacked the prerequisites in Latin, physics, chemistry, & math; over the course of 1 year studied the equivalent of 8 years of Latin, 5 years of science, & 5 years of math to catch up
- 1922, immigrated to the US; 1928, became a naturalized citizen
- Carl turned down many teaching positions because they wanted him to stop working with Gerti
- 1st American female to win a Nobel in science
- 6 scientists mentored by Geri & Carl went on to win Nobels
Born: 1896
Country: Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Czech republic)
Education: Medical School of the German University of Prague, MD 1920
Jill Cornell Tarter
🔭 Radio Astronomy
🔬 Astrobiology
- in her PhD dissertation coined the term "brown dwarf" while researching small-mass objects that fail to stably fuse hydrogen
- her astronomical work is illustrated in Carl Sagan's novel Contact
- has been featured in John Boswell's Symphony of Science music video, "The Poetry of Reality (An Anthem for Science)"
- created the TED-Ed lesson, "Calculating the Odds of Intelligent Alien Life."
- she has 13 pieces of titanium and straps embedded in her arm after shattering her elbow after tripping in the dark
- she wrote the SETI institute’s founding charter in 1984
- she retired as SETI’s director in 2012 so her salary could be used to allow the SETI team members to keep their jobs
- served as inspiration for Jodie Foster’s character, Ellie Arroway, in the 1997 film Contact
- became hooked on trying to find extraterrestials after reading a copy of “Project Cyclops,” a NASA paper summarizing preliminary ideas of how to detect artificial signals from space while at UC Berkeley
- her Cornell legacy scholarship was taken away after she told her advisor she was getting married in her Sophomore year but a professor arranged for a Proctor and Gamble Scholarship to replace the Cornell scholarship
- for years her daughter filled in forms requesting “mother’s occupation” with “looks for little green men”
- her high school guidance counselor once asked her, "Why do you want to take calculus? You're just going to get married and have babies,"
- was only 1 of 2 women in her engineering college & the only female to graduate
- her father encouraged her curiosity & desire to be an engineer before his death when she was 12
- began working at SETI in 1984
- used her TED Prize money to launch SETILive a citizen program that allows volunteers to stream live data from the Allen Telescope Array & help with research
Born: 1944
Country: USA
Education: Cornell University BEP (Engineering Physics) 1965 or 1966; UC Berkeley MA 1971 & PhD 1975 both in Astronomy
Debbie Catharina Crans
🔬 Organic Chemistry
- has contributed to over 215 peer-reviewed articles
- has initiated and run school science fairs, special science events as well as assisting 2nd grade teachers in development of science experiments during curriculum changes
- grew up in Denmark
- has been on the staff of Colorado State University since 1987
- holds 1 patent
Born: 1955
Country: Denmark
Education: Harvard University Ph.D. Organic Chemistry 1985; University of Copenhagen B.S. Organic 1978; UCLA Postdoctoral work 1985-86
Marian Rogers Croak
🔍 Digital Messaging
💻 computer science
- holds 213 patents
Born: 1955
Country: USA
Education: 1977, BA Princeton University; 1982 PhD Quantitative Analysis & Psychology, USC
Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin
🔬 Biochemistry
🔍 x-ray crystallography
- was banned from entering the US 1953-90 due to her left-wing views & associations with members of the Communist Party (including her husband) & required authorization from the CIA to enter the US
- both parents worked in North Africa & the Middle East & were involved in archaeology
- until she was 4 she lived with them in Cairo Egypt during winters & in England during the summer
- sent to live with maternal grandparents 1914 to attend school & only saw her parents when they returned to England
- at age 10 became very interested by crystals & by 13 was studying pebbles found in rivers near their homes & analyses them with a portable mineral analysis kit given to her by a family friend
- 1921 was 1 of 2 girls allowed to study chemistry at sir John Leman grammar School in Beccles England
- 1928 joined her parents at a dig in what is present-day Jordan & spent a year documenting the patterns of mosaics from several churches dating to the 5th & 6th centuries & conducting chemical analysis of glass tesserae tiles at the site, her drawings from that period are achieved at Yale University
- Margaret thatcher was a student of hers & hung a portrait of Hodgkin in her office when she was Prime Minister
- 1936-1977 was the 1st fellow & tutor of chemistry at somerville College at Cambridge
- 1934 was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis that over time created deformities in her hands & feet, causing great pain & difficulty using her lab equipment to the point where she had to design & install special levers so she could use the machines
- in her later years spent a great deal of time in wheelchairs but remained active in her lab until retiring
- was known as dorothy Crowfoot until 1949, 12 years after she married
- 1982 an asteroid was named after her
- 1996 honored by a stamp issued by the British government
- 2010 honored on a stamp issued by the royal society & they also award a Fellowship in her name
- Buildings & a school in England are named after her & plaques are erected at various places she lived & worked to honor her
- it took her 4 years to map penicillin's 17 atoms, 8 years for the 181 atoms of vitamin B-12 & 34 years for the 788 atoms of insulin, she considered the last to be her crowning achievement
- was a lifelong advocate for world peace after the death of 4 maternal uncles in WW1, campaigning against nuclear weapons & the Vietnam war
- in the headlines of UK papers announcing her Nobel Prize she was referred to as "a mother of three" & a housewife noting she was involved in an "unhousewifely" career
- retired from the public in 1988
- is the 1st & only British woman recipient of a Nobel Prize in science
Born: 1910
Country: Egypt
Education: Somerville College Oxford BA Chemistry 1932; University of Cambridge PhD Chemistry of Sterols 1937
Marie Skłodowska Curie
⚛️ Physics
🔬 chemistry
- Many of her possessions (including her work notebooks & recipes) are still radioactive because she carried radioactive materials inher pockets, unaware of the negative effects at the time
- 1st female to win a Nobel Prize & only person to win Nobles in 2 different sciences
- Named the element "polonium" after Poland, the country of her birth
- Created & transported over 200 x-ray machines to field hospitals during WWI with her daughter Irene; they were known as petite curies
- Due to her work, contracted radiation poisoning which eventually killed her
- Carried out most of her work in a shed behind the school where her husband Pierre worked
- Opened research centers in Paris & Warsaw
- She & Irene are the only mother & daughter to win Nobels
- Was reburied in The Pantheon (Paris' mausoleum for France's most revered dead) in 1995; 1st female awarded a place there for her own achievements
- 1906, 1st female professor at the Universite of Paris
Born: 1867
Country: Poland
Education: Flying University (an underground university in Poland); University of Paris, undergraduate degrees in 1893 & 1894, Phd 1903
Canan Dagdeviren
🔬 Materials Science
- her family was forced to leave their home in Izmit Turkey after an earthquake in 1999
- is the 1st Turkish scientist elected as a Junior Fellow at Harvard
- joined the faculty at MIT in 2017
- likes to read historical biographies of key people to learn about their obstacles & successes
- hobbies include running, composing music & asking questions
- sings in 7 languages; holds 5 patents
Born: 1985
Country: Turkey
Education: Hacettepe University (Ankara) BS Physics Engineering 2007; Sabanci University (Istanbul) MS Materials Science & Engineering 2009; University of Illinois Urbana-champaign PhD Materials Science & Engineering 2014; MIT Postdoc
Shaundra Bryant Daily
💻 Computer Science
- none
Born: 1979
Country: USA
Education: Florida State University College of Engineering, BS 2001; Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University, MS; MIT, SM 2005 & PhD 2010
Marie Maynard Daly
🔬 Biochemistry
- none
Born: 1921
Country: USA
Education: Queens College, 1942 BS Chemistry; New York University, MS Chemistry 1943; Columbia University, PhD Chemistry 1947
Theresa (Teri) A. Dankovich
🔬 Chemistry
🔬 Textile Science
- Invented germ-killing water filters as a graduate student
- Initially distributed the filters in Safe Water Books that had enough filters for a family of 4 for a year
- In response to COVID 19, used the same filters to create an antiviral 3-ply mask
- Uses sustainable materials in her masks & filters
- Has a patent pending for microwavable paper food packaging embedded with metal nanoparticles that absorb microwave radiation & convert it into heat
- Co-founder & CTO of Folia Water (2016)
- Holds 4 patent with others for face masks & Microwave food paper pending
Born: Unknown
Country: USA
Education: Cornell University BS Textile & Apparel-Fiber Science 2003; UC-Davis MS Agricultural & Environmental Chemistry 2006; McGill University PhD Chemistry (Materials) 2012
Geraldine Claudette Darden
📊 Mathematics
📚 teacher
- none
Born: 1936
Country: USA
Education: Hampton Institute, BA Mathematics 1957; University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign MS Mathematics 1960; 2nd MS 1956 & PhD 1967 Mathematics
Ingrid Daubechies
⚛️ Physics
📊 Mathematics
- Is a Baroness
- Developed image processing technology used to establish the age & authenticity of some of the world's most famous works of art
- 1st female president of the International Mathematics Union (2011-14)
- On the Board of Directors of EDGE, an organization that helps women enter graduate studies in mathematics & science
- As a child didn't count sheep to fall asleep, multiplying numbers by 2 & familiarizing herself with the properties of exponential growth instead
- 1st female full professor of mathematics at Princeton
- 2020 & 2021, with Dominique Erhmann, led a team of mathematicians & artists who built the touring art & math installation known as Mathemalchemy
- Worked on the team restoring the Ghent Altarpiece by Hubert & Jan van Eyck
- She & her team were able to decipher the text of the polyptych attributed to Thomas Aquinas
- 1st female recipient of the National Academy of Sciences Award in Mathematics (2000)
- 2023, 1st female recipient of the Wolf Prize in Mathematics
- 1st female recipient of the William Benter Prize (2018)
- Holds 1 patent
Born: 1954
Country: Belgium
Education: Vrije Universiteit Brussels, 1975 undergraduate degree in Physics, 1980 PhD Theoretical Physics
Clair de March
🔬 Microbiology
- TBD
Born: Unknown
Country: France
Education: Universite Versailles St-Quentin FR BS Chemistry 2007; Pierre & Marie Curie Universite MS Molecular Chemistry 2011; Universite of Nice Sophia Antipolis Universite Cote d'Azur PhD 2015; ISIPCA Versailles FR Pro MS Chemistry
Mary Lovenia Deconge-Watson
📊 Mathematics
📚 educator
- none
Born: 1933
Country: USA
Education: BA Mathematics & French, Seton Hill College 1959; MA Mathematics, Louisiana State University, 1962; PhD Mathematics, St. Louis University, 1968
Leila Alice Daughtry Denmark
⚕️ Medicine
- retired at age 103 after 73 years as a pediatrician; by the time she retired she was treating grandchildren and great-grandchildren of her first patients
- was 114 at the time of her death & considered a supercentenarian
- was the older sister of Clyde Daughtry, who is known for shooting the only known authentic color footage of the attack on Pearl Harbor
- was the first physician on staff when Henrietta Egleston Hospital, a pediatric hospital, opened on the Emory University campus
- was among the first doctors to object to adults smoking cigarettes around children, and to pregnant women using drugs
- believed that drinking cow's milk is harmful
- recommended children and adults eat fresh fruit rather than drinking fruit juices, and drink only water
- lived independently in her Cumming, Georgia home until age 106 when she moved to Athens, Georgia to live with her only child, Mary (Denmark) Hutcherson
- was the third of their twelve children
- grew up in a farming community
- attend high school at an agricultural and mechanical school
- her patients reported she could often determine exactly what was wrong with a child when they first walked into the office, just by looking at them
- promoted common sense preventive medicine and therapy over pharmaceutical remedies wherever possible
- ran an office out of a farmhouse near her home until her retirement in 2001
- kept costs down by leaving a sign-up sheet for patients instead of hiring a receptionist and charging just $10 for the first visit and $8 for every visit thereafter
- in her first book placed responsibility for a child’s health and happiness solely with the parents
- believed in getting to the root causes of illness and laughter and a sense of humor were keys to long life
- when she originally applied to medical she was told to become a nurse instead but she fought with the administrators until they admitted her to the medical school in 1924
- enjoyed her family, going to the opera, gardening, sewing, reading, and the occasional game of golf
- she made most of her own clothes
- retired because her eyesight became poor but continued to give medical advice over the phone until she was 110
- called her patients "little angels"
Born: 1898
Country: USA
Education: Tift College AB 1922; Mercer University studied chemistry & physics for 2 years; Medical college of Georgia (later Georgia Health Sciences University) MD 1928
Wanda Diaz-Merced
🔭 Astronomy
- Was awarded the 1st Google scholarship for people with disabilities
- Lost her sight in her early 20s; now uses audio to study space science telemetry through sonification
- Has collaborated with Gerhard Sonnert on a music album based on her audio representations, "X-Ray Hydra" includes 9 pieces of music derived from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory rendered as sound
- A classmate who was an amateur astronomer was participating in a NASA program called Radio Jove, recording & analyzing radio transmissions from Jupiter, the Sun, & galaxy using a small make-it-yourself antenna; he had her listen to a radio signal from a solar flare & she was hooked, joining the program
Born: Unknown
Country: Puerto Rico
Education: University of Puerto Rico BS Physics; University of Glasgow PhD Computer Science 2015
Gladys Rowena Henry Dick
🔬 Microbiology
⚕️ Medical doctor
- 1911, contracted scarlet fever while working at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago; began studying the disease after recovering
- 1923, she & her husband George F. Dick, discovered the cause & developed a skin test for scarlet fever
- Patented the toxin & antitoxin production methods in 1924 & 1926, which produced criticism in the medical field but they argued the patents helped them maintain quality control
- Was also active in polio research
- Was an advocate for adoption & founded the Cradle Society in Evanston, IL
- Devised the Dick Aseptic Nursing Technique to prevent cross-infection among infants with strict sterilization & aseptic procedures Held 3 patents
Born: 1881
Country: USA
Education: University of Nebraska-Lincoln BS Zoology 1900; Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine MD 1907; 1 yr of post-graduate work at University of Berlin
Rosanne DiStefano
⚛️ Astrophysics
- Leader of a group that may have located an exoplanet the size of Saturn in the WhirlpoolGalaxy capable of sustaining life; it is 31 million light years away from Earth
- She researches stars interacting within dense stellar environments, the evolution of supernovae, x-ray astronomy, & gravitational microlensing.
- Sigma Xi National Lecturer
- Her artwork can be found at rosanne-distefano.org/art/gallery/index.html
- Confirmation of her findings about the possible M51 planet are made difficult because the exact nature of the orbit is unknown. It is believed the observed phenomenon will not occur again for another 70 years.
Born: unknown
Country: USA
Education: CUNY Queens College BA 1973; Columbia University MA 1976; SUNY Stony Brook PhD 1982
Mary M. Donnelly
🔬 Food Sciences
- nothing was found on her except her invention of the corn-fork
Born: Unknown
Country: USA
Education: Unknown
Jennifer Anne Doudna
🔬 Biochemistry
🔬 Molecular Biology
🔍 CRISPR
🔬 RNA Biology
🔍 gene editing
Jennifer Anne Doudna
🔬 Biochemistry
🔬 Molecular Biology
🔍 CRISPR
🔬 RNA Biology
🔍 gene editing
- 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Emmanuelle Charpentier for CRISPR & Ras9
- Holds 109 patents
- One of the 1st women to share a Nobel Prize in the sciences
- Also known for the 1st x-ray based structure of catalytic RNA
- While in the 6th grade, her father gave her a copy of James Watson's 1968 book, The Double Helix, which was a major inspiration for her
- 2017, co-authored, "A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing & the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution" a 1st person account of a major scientific breakthrough aimed at the general public
Born: 1964
Country: USA
Education: Pomona College, BA Biochemistry 1985; Harvard University MA & PhD 1989 Biological Chemistry & Molecular Pharmacology; University of Colorado-Boulder Postdoctoral Scholar in Biomedical Science 1991-1994
Mildred S. Dresselhaus
⚛️ Applied Physics
- Known as "The Queen of Carbon Science"
- In grade school she was a tutor for a special needs student & earned 50 cents weekly
- As a young child she did paperwork assembly tasks at home & worked in a zipper factory in the summer to help provide income for her family
- Worked at MIT for 57 years
- Several physical theories are named after her including: Hicks-Dresselhaus Model. Saito-Fujita-Dresselhaus Model, Dresselhaus Effect
- She & a colleague organized the 1st Women's Forum at MIT in 1971 to explore the roles of women in science & engineering
- 1st female Institute Professor at MIT
- 1st female president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
- 1st female recipient of the IEEE Medal of Honor
- Held 17 patents
Born: 1930
Country: USA
Education: 1951 BA Liberal Arts, Hunter College; MA Radcliffe College; PhD University of Chicago 1958; Uiversity of Cambridege Fullbright Fellowship, postgraduate work; Cornell University Postdoctorate work 2 years
Nguyet Anh Duong
💻 Computer Science
⚛️ Chemical Engineering
- is known as The Bomb Lady
- by 2001 was director of Insensitive Munitions Advanced Development at the Naval Surface Warfare Center’s Indian Head Division, in Charles County, Md
- is noted as the "Scientist who developed the bomb that ended the war with Afghanistan" by the Vietnamese American National Gala
- her advice is attitude comes first, then aptitude, and finally, altitude, or success
- wanted to be a doctor until a H.S, zoology class & a required dissection showed her she was afraid of blood so she dropped the class to preserve her perfect GPA
Born: 1960
Country: South Vietnam
Education: University of Maryland, College Park B.S. Chemical Engineering & B.S. Computer Science 1982;
Sylvia Alice Reade Earle
🔬 Marine Biology
- Founder of Mission Blue in 2009, organization dedicated to protecting the oceans from threats like climate change, pollution, habitat destruction, invasive species, & dramatic decrease in ocean fish stock
- 1st female chief scientist at NOAA; left because she felt she could accomplish more working independently of the government
- 1968, discovered undersea dunes off the coast of the Bahamas
- 1969, discovered a new red algae she named Hummbrella hydra
- Holds the record for deepest walk on the sea floor
- Holds the depth record for a solo dive-1,250 feet
- Known as "Her Deepness" or "The Sturgeon General"
- Has spent almost 7,000 hours underwater, written 180 publications, & led over 100 ocean expeditions
- 1970, led the 1st all-female team of aquanauts in Tektite II
- 1982, she & Graham Hawkes (later her husband) founded Deep Ocean Engineering to design, operate, support, & consult on piloted & robotic subsea systems; 1985, team designed & built Deep Rover research submarine; left company 1990 to be chief scientist at NOAA
- 1992, founder Deep Ocean Exploration Research (DOER Marine) to further advance marine engineering; company now run by her daughter Elizabeth; designs, builds, & operates equipment for deep-ocean environments
Born: 1935
Country: USA
Education: St. Petersburg Junior College AA 1952; Florida State University BS Botany 1955; Duke University MS Botany 1956, PhD Botany 1966
Annie Jean Easley
📊 Mathematics
💻 Computer Engineering
- Helped train African-Americans to take the voting test in her home state of Alabama
- Started skiing at age 46; founder & president of NASA Lewis Ski Club
- Tutored female & minority elementary & high school students in a work-study program & encouraged them to pursue careers in STEM
- Believed in the value of employee morale
- Developed software for the Centaur rocket stage
- Majored in pharmacy for 2 years before switching to math
- 1955, was 1 of 4 African-Americans hired by NASA out of 2,500 employees
- Was an Equal Employment Opportunity counselor at NASA & fought discrimination there
- Her photo was cut out of a NASA promotional photo because she was Black
- Worked at NASA for 34 years
- One of the 1st females to wear pants to work in the 1970s at NASA
- After retiring from NASA became an independent contractor in real estate
Born: 1933
Country: USA
Education: 2 years pharmacy school at Xavier University of Louisiana; Cleveland State University BS Mathematics 1977
Helen Thom Edwards
⚛️ Accelerator Physics
- joined Fermi National Accelerator Labs (Fermilabs) in 1970
- was a nature lover
- the Tevatron was decommission in 2011 & she was given the honor of throwing the switch to turn it off but it refused to shut down on the 1st try
- was a "hands-on" type of person who often pulled all-nighters to work on a problem & would work on the Tevatron alongside her co-workers
- often felt held back by the constraints of the bureaucracy
- was devoted to her PhD students & exposed them to all aspects of her work
- after retiring to Montana in the early 1990s with her husband don, a fellow physicist, the 1st thing she did was construct a birch bark canoe from scratch
- put up trail cameras in remote woodlands near her home so she could photograph animals in their habitat
- had a backyard telescope she attached a camera to so she could take photographs & was especially proud of pictures she took of the rings of Saturn
- was allowed to throw the switch that turned off Tevatron when it was decommissioned in 2011but it refused to turn off the 1st time she tried
- she & husband (Don Edwards another physicist) endowed a chair in accelerator physics at Cornell University in 2001
Born: 1936
Country: USA
Education: Cornell University BS 1957 & MS 1963 both in Physics, PhD Experimental Physics 1966
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