Women in Science trough the years
Women have made contributions to science from the earliest times. Historians with an interest in gender and science have illuminated the scientific endeavors and accomplishments of women, the barriers they have faced, and the strategies implemented to have their work peer-reviewed and accepted. The historical, critical and sociological study of these issues has become an academic discipline in its own right.
In ancient history:
- Agamede (c. XII century BCE) was, according to Homer, a mythological Greek physician acquainted with the healing powers of all the plants that grow upon the earth.
- Agnodice (c. 4th century BCE) a legendary figure credited as the first female midwife or physician in ancient Athens.
- Mary the Jewess (between the 1st and 3rd centuries) attributed with the invention of several chemical apparatus and is considered to be the first non fictitious alchemist in the Western world.
- Hypatia of Alexandria (ca 360 – 415) a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt
- Cleopatra the Alchemist (3rd or 4th century), Egyptian alchemist and author.
Medieval Europe
- Saint Hildegard of Bingen (c. 1098 – 1179) a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner.
- Trotula of Salerno Trota of Salerno, a physician and medical writer in the XII century in Salerno, Italy who wrote one of the three texts on women's medicine called the "Trotula".
- Dorothea Bucca (1360–1436) (also Dorotea Bocchi) was an Italian physician.
Scientific Revolution
(16th, 17th centuries)
- Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1623 – 1673) English philosopher, poet, scientist, fiction writer and playwright.
- Maria Margaretha Kirch née Winckelmann (1670 – 1720) German astronomer.
Born 1700 to 1800
- Marie-Anne Lavoisier (1758 – 1836), French chemist
- Emilie du Châtelet (1706 – 1749) French mathematician, physicist, and author during the Age of Enlightenment.
Born 1800 to 1900
- Augusta Ada King (Byron), Countess of Lovelace (1815 – 1852), English writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine.
- Henrietta Swan Leavitt
- Isabel Bassett Wasson (1897–1994) one of the first female petroleum geologists in the United States
- Rebecca Lancefield-Craighill (1895 – 1981) a prominent American microbiologist.
- Margaret Nice Morse (1883 – 1974) American ornithologist who made an extensive study of the life history of the Song Sparrow.
- Cornelia Maria Clapp (1849 – 1934) American zoologist and academic specializing in marine biology.
- Julia Anna Gardner (1882 – 1960), American geologist, was known worldwide for her work in stratigraphy and mollusc paleontology.
- Katharine Burr Blodgett (1898 – 1979) the first woman to be awarded a Ph.D. in Physics from University of Cambridge in 1926. In "General Electric", she invented low-reflectance "invisible" glass.
- Nettie Maria Stevens (1861 – 1912) American geneticist. She and Edmund Beecher Wilson were the first researchers to describe the chromosomal basis of sex.
- Ellen Henrietta Richards (1842 – 1911) was the foremost female industrial and environmental chemist in the United States in the 19th century, pioneering the field of home economics.
- Alice Hamilton (1869 – 1970) the first woman appointed to the faculty of Harvard University and was a leading expert in the field of occupational health.
- Amelia Emmy Noether (1882 – 1935) German mathematician who made many important contributions to abstract algebra.
Born 1900 to 2000
- Rosalind Venetia Fox Henley (1907 – 1990) British biochemist and Fellow of the Royal Society.
- Helen Sawyer Hogg (1905 – 1993) a prolific Canadian astronomer noted for her research into globular clusters.
- Dixy Lee Ray (1914–January 2, 1994) Marine biologist and political figure. Was the 17th Governor of the U.S. State of Washington - Washington's first female governor.
- Rachel Carson (1907 – 1964) American marine biologist and conservationist whose writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement
- Dr. Amalia Koutsouri-Vourekas Lady Fleming (1912 – 1986) Greek physician, bacteriologist, human rights activist and politician.
Nobel prize
The Nobel Prize in Physics
- 1963 – Maria Goeppert Mayer (1906 – 1972) German-born American theoretical physicist
- 1903 – Marie Curie, née Sklodowska, (1867 – 1934) Polish–French physicist–chemist. Pioneering researcher of radioactivity. First person honoured with two Nobel Prizes — in physics (1903) and later in chemistry (1911),
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- 2020 – Emmanuelle Charpentier (b. 1968) French microbiologist, geneticist and biochemist.
- 2020 – Jennifer Anne Doudna (b. 1964) American biochemist.
- 2018 – Frances H. Arnold (b. 1956) American scientist and engineer
- 2009 – Ada E. Yonath (b. 1939) Israeli structural biologist.
- 1964 – Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910 – 1994) British biochemist and structural chemist.
- 1935 – Irène Joliot-Curie (1897 – 1956) French Chemist.
- 1911 – Marie Curie (née Sklodowska) (1867 – 1934) Polish–French physicist–chemist.
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- 2009 – Elizabeth H. Blackburn (b. 1948) Australian-American biologist.
- 2009 – Carol W. Greider (b. 1961) American molecular biologist.
- 2008 – Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (b. 1947) French virologist.
- 2004 – Linda B. Buck (b. 1947) American biologist.
- 1995 – Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (b. 1942) German biologist.
- 1988 – Gertrude B. Elion (1918 - 1999) American biochemist and pharmacologist.
- 1986 – Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909 - 2012) Italian Neurobiologist.
- 1983 – Barbara McClintock (1902 – 1992) American cytogeneticists.
- 1977 – Rosalyn Yalow (1921 - 2011) American endocrinologist.
- 1947 – Gerty Theresa Cori (née Radnitz) (1896 - 1957), Czech-American biochemist.
Turing Award
recognized as the "highest distinction in Computer science" and "Nobel Prize of computing".
- 2012 – Shafrira (Shafi) Goldwasser (b. 1958) American-Israeli computer scientist