Women have been contributing to our understanding of science for millennia, in ways both large and small. Aside from a few, their work is often unacknowledged, uncredited, and unknown. This leads us to wonder, where are the women?
The photograph of the participants at the 1927 Solvay Conference was somewhat shocking at the time because there was a woman in it – Marie Curie. But she was not the only woman who made significant contributions to the understanding of radioactivity. Have you heard of Ellen Gleditsch, Harriet Brooks, or Marguerite Perrey? Photo Source: Wikipedia
Sometimes we hear about the scientific activities carried out by groups of women who are given names that downplay the importance of their work. This is a 1913 photograph of Pickering’s Harem. Also known as the Harvard Computers, their work as a group was integral to the mapping of the universe, and the individual discoveries of two of the Computers, Annie Jump Cannon and Henrietta Swan Leavitt, advanced our understanding of stars. Photo Credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
When you do hear about an individual woman, her scientific achievements are often downplayed in favor of what are perceived to be more interesting facts. In the 1740s Émilie du Châtelet translated Newton’s Principe into French, a translation still considered to be the standard in France, and made profound contributions to the understanding of Newtonian mechanics. But most people know her, if they know her at all, as Voltaire’s lover. Photo Source: Wikipedia
Where are the women? They are there, you just have to look for them….the stories are all around us! This exhibit was created to recognize the long history of women’s contributions to science. The cases in this exhibit highlight 12 women who have made significant additions to our understanding of science over the last 400 years. You can learn more about them, the women mentioned here, and many others at https://websites.umass.edu/womeninscience/
Fabiola Gianotti (1960- ) Project leader of the Atlas experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, one of the two experiments involved in the discovery of the Higgs boson. First woman to be Director General of CERN. Ranked 84th on Forbes’ 2016 list of the most powerful women in the world. Photo Credit: Atlas Experiment, CERN
Ellen Ochoa (1958- ) First Latina in space. First Latina and second woman to be Director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Pioneer of spacecraft technology with patents on optical systems for performing information processing. Classical flutist, played with the Stanford Symphony Orchestra while in graduate school and on the Space Shuttle. Photo Credit: NASA
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (1953- ) Chairman & Managing Director of Biocon Limited, a biotech company based in Bangalore, India. Awarded the Othmer Gold Medal in 2014 for outstanding contributions to the progress of science and chemistry. Ranked 77th on Forbes’ 2016 list of the most powerful women in the world. Master Brewer. Photo Credit: Chemical Heritage Foundation
Ada E. Yonath (1939- ) First Israeli woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first woman from the Middle East to win a Nobel Prize in the sciences – Chemistry (2009) for her studies of the structure and function of the ribosome. Director of the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure and Assembly of the Weizmann Institute of Science. Photo Credit: Weizmann Institute of Science
Annie Easley (1933-2011) Leading member of the team which developed software for the Centaur rocket stage, which laid the technological foundations for the Space Shuttle launches and launches of communication, military, and weather satellites. One of the first African-American employees of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the forerunner of NASA. Photo Credit: NASA
Tu Youyou (1930- ) The first Chinese scientist to win the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine – 2015 for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against malaria. Chief Scientist in the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medical Sciences. Before 2011, her work was described as “almost completely forgotten by people.” Photo Source: Wikipedia
Marie Maynard Daly (1921-2003) First African-American woman to earn a PhD in Chemistry in the United States (Columbia University, 1947). Investigated the causes of heart attacks and the effects of cigarette smoking on the lungs. Professor of biochemistry and of medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Photo Source: BlackThen.com
Katherine G. Johnson (1918- ) Known for her accuracy in computerized celestial navigation, she calculated the trajectory for many NASA missions, including Project Mercury, the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the Moon, Apollo 13, and the Space Shuttles. First African American woman to desegregate the graduate school at West Virginia University. Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015. Photo Credits: NASA/David C. Bowman
Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997) Chinese American experimental physicist who made significant contributions in the field of nuclear physics. Worked on the Manhattan Project. Conducted the Wu experiment, which contradicted the hypothetical law of conservation of parity. Her nicknames include “the First Lady of Physics,” “the Chinese Madame Curie,” and the “Queen of Nuclear Research.” Photo Credit: Smithsonian Institution Archives
Ellen Swallow Richards (1842-1911) First woman to earn a degree in Chemistry (Vassar College, 1870). First woman to graduate from MIT (1873) and the first woman instructor at MIT. Founder of the home economics movement characterized by the application of science to the home, the first to apply chemistry to the study of nutrition, and pioneer in sanitary engineering. One of the “founding mothers” of the American Association of University Women (AAUW). Photo Source: Wikipedia
Caroline Herschel (1750-1848) Her most significant contributions to astronomy were the discoveries of several comets, including the periodic comet 35P/Herschel-Rigollet, and the Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars. First woman to be paid for her contribution to science, to be awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1828), and to be named an Honorary Member of the Royal Astronomical Society (1835, with Mary Somerville). Worked with her brother William Herschel and nephew John Herschel. Photo Credit: Wellcome Library, London
Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) Naturalist, scientific illustrator, and entomologist. Most known for her observations and documentation of the metamorphosis of the butterfly. Created the first classification for insects which have chrysalises. Spent 8 years studying and sketching the animals, insects, and plants of the Dutch Colony of Surinam. Referred to as the “woman who made science beautiful.” Photo Source: Wikipedia
