Celebrating Women In Science

Words by: Dr.   Lucie Yammine
Edited by: Dr. Conchi Izquierdo

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In honor of the “International Women and Girls in Science” celebrated on february 11th, we wanted to celebrate the contribution of women to the sciences.

When we talk about women in Science, one of the first names that would come to mind would be the double Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie, Physics laureate in 1903 for her researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel and Chemistry laureate in 1911 for the discovery of the elements radium and polonium. Or the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureates Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna for their discovery of the CRISPR-Cas9 system.

However, awarded women are still an exception at receiving this recognition for their work. Since its launch in 1901, only 58 women were awarded the Nobel Prize in all categories and only 22 women (23, with Marie Curie winning twice) were Chemistry, Physics or Medicine laureates, when the total number of laureates for these categories is 631 laureates.

In this article, we decided to acknowledge less publicly recognized women scientists for their work and contribution to the advance of science. This list is not exhaustive and many more women’s impact should be celebrated. 
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We would love to know more about your role models and the women who inspired you in your scientific career. Tell us about it!
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Henrietta Leavitt, astronomer (1868-1921)
 
Henrietta Leavitt was a human “computer” at the Harvard College Observatory. The “computer” position was given to women tasked to observe the stars and analyze the data they collect. In 1912, while observing a class of variable stars called Cepheids, Leavitt discovered that their period was closely linked to their luminosity. Her discovery revolutionized Astronomy and led to the possibility of calculating the distance of variable stars to Earth.
www.britannica.com

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​Lise Meitner, physicist (1878-1968)
 
Lise Meitner was born in Austria in 1878, but built most of her career as a professor of physics in Berlin, Germany and then in Stockholm, Sweden.
While she was in Berlin she started a collaboration with the chemist Otto Hahn, who stayed her long lasting collaborator even after the Jewish physicist Lise Meitner had to flee to Sweden when Nazi Germany rose in 1938.
Together with Otto Hahn, they studied nuclear physics and their work led to the discovery of nuclear fission.
However, Otto Hahn published their work under his name only and got all the credit for this major discovery by winning the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1944.
Meitner did get nominated several times afterwards to the Nobel Prize without ever being awarded. But her contributions didn’t go unnoticed as the element 109 Meitnerium was named after her and she went on to win many other prizes. Albert Einstein also called her Germany’s Marie Curie.
​www.britannica.com
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Alice Ball, chemist (1892-1916)
 
Although Alice Ball had a very short life, she was able to make breakthrough discoveries in the treatment of leprosy or Hansen’s disease. Alice Ball, an African American chemist, was born in Seattle and became the first woman to graduate with a Master’s degree from the University of Hawaii where she was then offered a professorship at only 23.
She developed what was called the “Ball Method” that consisted into an safe, absorbable injection of chaulmoogra extract to treat leprosy.
Unfortunately Ball died at 24 before publishing her work, and Samuel L. Dean, another chemist and later President of the University of Hawaii, stole her work to publish the method under his own name. It’s only years later that Ball was given credits for her revolutionary discovery. Alic Ball day is celebrated in Hawaii every four years on February 29th as a recognition of her contributions.
 www.biography.com
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Barbara McClintock, biologist (1902-1992)
 
Barbara McClintock is an American cytogeneticist who received her PhD at Cornell University. She studied genetic changes in maize. She built a theory about jumping genes that could determine the fate of a cell and allowing for diversity of cell types from the same organism.
Although she was first criticized for her discoveries, her perseverance got her to win the first unshared Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for a woman in 1983.
 www.nobelprize.org

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Grace Murray Hopper, mathematician (1906-1992)
  
Grace Murray Hopper was an American computer scientist and mathematician. She is the reason we say “there is a bug in my computer”. She was born in New York City and attended Yale where she received a PhD in mathematics in 1934. During World War II, she joined the navy and became a rear Admiral. She is known as one of the first programmers, and learned to program the first computer Mark I at Harvard University.
For her contributions, she was awarded several Prizes, including Computer Science Man-of-the-Year Award and was the first woman to receive the National Medal of Technology in 1991.
www.smoda.elpais.com


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Dorothy Hodgkin, chemist (1910-1994)
 
Dorothy Hodgkin made her way to obtain a PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1936. She spent her career mapping by crystallography the structure of penicillin and later insulin. Her work was essentially to be able to make synthetic versions that could be used in patients. Hodgkin was awarded a Nobel Prize for her work in 1964 and she remains to date the only British woman to ever be awarded this distinction.
www.iucr.org
www.nobelprize.org


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Chien-Shiung Wu, physicist (1912-1997)
 
Chien-Shiung Wu is a Chinese physicist, she attended the University of California, Berkeley. During World War II, she was recruited by Columbia University to be part of the Manhattan Project on the development of nuclear weapons. She then worked with Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang on the law of parity.
Her two men colleagues were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1957, but she didn’t get recognition for her contribution.
Chein-Shiung Wu in 1964: “I wonder, whether the tiny atoms and nuclei, or the mathematical symbols, or the DNA molecules have any preference for either masculine or feminine treatment.”
www.biography.com
www.carnegiestemgirls.org


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Katherine Johnson, mathematician (1918-2020)
 
Katherine Johnson is an American mathematician who has helped shape the space missions at NASA during the 1950-1960's.
She was one of the first African American women to join NASA and work on complex calculations for the first American in space Alan Shepherd in 1961. John Glenn, the first man in orbit, specifically asked her to double check by hand the trajectory calculations of one of the first computers before launching.
Johnson was then involved in subsequent NASA missions in space, including Apollo 11 flight to the moon.
Katherine Johnson is celebrated as a pioneer African American woman in sciences.
In 2015 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The 2016 movie Hidden Figures depicts Johnson and two of her colleagues Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson as human computers for NASA.
www.nasa.gov 


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Rosalind Franklin, chemist (1920-1958)
  
Rosalind Franklin is an English chemist and X-ray crystallographer who revolutionized DNA imaging.
She worked as an associate researcher at King’s College London where she made her major discovery of DNA double helix structure, “Photo 51” in 1952. James Watson, Francis Crick and  Maurice Wilkinsused Franklin’s x-ray image to confirm the 3D structure of DNA and used the image without her permission to publish their work on DNA structure. The three men received a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962, while Franklin’s contribution was not acknowledged. Her story has since become the greatest example of sexism in science and academic professions.
www.britannica.com
www.sciencedirect.com

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Women have been shaping science for centuries, and continue to do so today. Their contributions are now better recognized and their work is inspiring new generations of female scientists to always move forward despite the difficulties.
 
Sources
www.biography.com
www.nobelprize.org
www.nasa.gov
www.wikipedia.org
www.britannica.com
www.news.yale.edu
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