History of Women in Science
Women in Science: Hidden Histories, Breakthroughs, and Recognition
Recovering Overlooked Scientific Histories
The history of science includes many women whose work was overlooked, undercredited, or hidden in institutional records. Modern archives, digital collections, machine learning, and data science projects are helping recover these stories by identifying women who contributed to research, collections, fieldwork, laboratory science, and public knowledge. Smithsonian and museum-based projects show how historical data, metadata, and archival research can reveal women whose scientific labor was essential but not always publicly recognized.
These recovery efforts also highlight broader structural barriers in science. Women have long faced exclusion from universities, laboratories, professional societies, funding networks, and publication systems. The “leaky pipeline” in STEM reflects how discrimination, unequal opportunity, and lack of institutional support have limited women’s advancement. At the same time, organizations and public history projects now work to make women scientists more visible, accessible, and connected to contemporary science education.
Medicine, Chemistry, Biology, and Genetics
Women have made major contributions to medicine, chemistry, biology, and genetics. Marie Curie’s pioneering work on radioactivity made her one of the most important scientists of the twentieth century and the first person to receive Nobel Prizes in two scientific fields. Irène Joliot-Curie advanced the study of artificial radioactivity, while Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin used X-ray crystallography to determine the structures of important biochemical molecules.
In medicine and biology, women such as Gerty Cori, Barbara McClintock, Rosalyn Yalow, Rita Levi-Montalcini, Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Tu Youyou, and Katalin Karikó helped transform knowledge of metabolism, genetics, diagnostics, neurobiology, virology, malaria treatment, cellular aging, and mRNA vaccine science. More recent Nobel-recognized scientists such as Emmanuelle Charpentier, Jennifer Doudna, Carolyn Bertozzi, and Frances Arnold reshaped fields including genome editing, bioorthogonal chemistry, and directed evolution.
Other women made breakthroughs despite exclusion from formal recognition. Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray diffraction work was central to understanding DNA structure. Alice Ball developed an important treatment for Hansen’s disease. Marie Maynard Daly became the first Black woman in the United States to earn a PhD in chemistry. Patricia Bath advanced ophthalmology and laser cataract treatment, while Virginia Apgar created the Apgar Score, a rapid newborn assessment used around the world.
Astronomy, Physics, and Mathematics
Women have shaped astronomy, physics, and mathematics from antiquity to the present. Hypatia, Émilie du Châtelet, Mary Somerville, Sophie Germain, and Emmy Noether contributed to mathematics, natural philosophy, physics, and scientific thought during eras when women were largely excluded from formal institutions. Noether’s work in abstract algebra and theoretical physics became foundational to modern science.
Astronomers such as Caroline Herschel, Maria Mitchell, Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, Vera Rubin, and Andrea Ghez changed how scientists understand stars, galaxies, cosmic distances, dark matter, and the center of the Milky Way. In physics, Chien-Shiung Wu’s experimental work helped confirm parity violation, Maria Goeppert Mayer developed the nuclear shell model, Donna Strickland advanced high-intensity laser physics, and Anne L’Huillier contributed to attosecond science.
In mathematics and computer science, Maryam Mirzakhani became the first woman to receive the Fields Medal, while Cynthia Dwork helped define privacy-preserving data analysis. Their achievements show that women’s contributions continue to shape both theoretical and applied scientific fields.
NASA, Spaceflight, and Hidden Figures
Women played essential roles in the history of NASA and American spaceflight. The women mathematicians, engineers, and “human computers” of NACA and NASA performed calculations that supported aircraft research, Project Mercury, Apollo, and later space missions. Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Christine Darden, and other women associated with the Hidden Figures legacy helped make early human spaceflight possible.
NASA’s recognition of these women, including the Congressional Gold Medals awarded to Hidden Figures pioneers, reflects a broader effort to correct historical underrecognition. Katherine Johnson’s trajectory calculations, Dorothy Vaughan’s leadership in West Area Computing, Mary Jackson’s engineering career, and Christine Darden’s sonic boom research all demonstrate the importance of women’s technical expertise in aerospace history.
Women also expanded the boundaries of space exploration as astronauts, engineers, and scientific leaders. Sally Ride became the first American woman in space. Mae Jemison became the first Black woman in space. Ellen Ochoa served as an astronaut and later director of Johnson Space Center. Margaret Hamilton’s Apollo software work helped define modern software engineering, while Nancy Grace Roman’s leadership in space astronomy helped pave the way for the Hubble Space Telescope.
Computing, Engineering, Invention, and Technology
Women have been central to computing, engineering, invention, and modern technology. Ada Lovelace is remembered for her work on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine and her early vision of computer programming. Grace Hopper helped develop compilers and programming languages, making computing more accessible and practical. Karen Spärck Jones influenced information retrieval and search technology, while Radia Perlman’s networking innovations helped shape internet infrastructure.
Women inventors also transformed daily life and industry. Josephine Garis Cochran invented an early practical dishwasher. Mary Anderson patented a windshield wiper design. Hedy Lamarr co-invented frequency-hopping technology that later influenced wireless communications. Stephanie Kwolek invented Kevlar, a material with major uses in safety and industry. Gladys West’s mathematical modeling contributed to the development of GPS.
Modern technology fields continue to be shaped by women such as Fei-Fei Li, whose work in computer vision and human-centered artificial intelligence has influenced the development and public understanding of AI. These examples show that women’s technical contributions span domestic technology, military research, software, search, networks, materials science, and artificial intelligence.
Natural History, Environment, and Life Sciences
Women have also made major contributions to natural history, environmental science, conservation, and field biology. Maria Sibylla Merian’s observations and illustrations of insects helped advance understanding of metamorphosis and ecology. Jeanne Baret became the first woman known to have circumnavigated the globe and contributed to botanical exploration. Mary Anning’s fossil discoveries helped shape early paleontology, even though she received limited recognition during her lifetime.
In the life sciences, Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Biruté Galdikas, Eugenie Clark, Sylvia Earle, Mary Leakey, Mary Agnes Chase, and Ynes Mexia expanded knowledge of primates, marine biology, paleoanthropology, botany, taxonomy, and field research. Their work often combined scientific observation with public education and conservation.
Environmental science and activism were also shaped by women such as Rachel Carson and Wangari Maathai. Carson’s warnings about pesticides helped launch modern environmental awareness, while Maathai’s Green Belt Movement connected environmental restoration, women’s leadership, and community organizing. These scientists and advocates show how women’s science has often linked research with public health, ecological protection, and social change.
Anthropology, Social Science, and Public Knowledge
Women have contributed to anthropology, social science, and early natural philosophy as researchers, writers, theorists, and public intellectuals. Margaret Cavendish wrote about natural philosophy at a time when women were largely excluded from scientific institutions. Margaret Mead became one of the most influential anthropologists of the twentieth century, bringing debates about culture, human development, and social behavior into public conversation.
Ruth Benedict helped shape cultural anthropology, while Zora Neale Hurston combined anthropological fieldwork with literary achievement. Their work demonstrates that science is not limited to laboratories and instruments; it also includes the study of people, cultures, behavior, language, and social systems.
Recognition, Barriers, and Legacy
The history of women in science is both a record of discovery and a record of unequal recognition. Many women worked without titles, funding, institutional authority, or fair credit. Others had their discoveries delayed, dismissed, or attributed to male colleagues. Yet their contributions helped build modern medicine, genetics, physics, astronomy, computing, conservation, aerospace, and public health.
Public history projects, museum collections, Nobel biographies, NASA archives, digital databases, and educational resources now make these stories easier to find. They show that women were not exceptions to the history of science; they were central participants in it. Recovering their work changes how science history is told and helps future generations see scientific discovery as a more inclusive human endeavor.
Conclusion
Women have advanced science across centuries, disciplines, and institutions. From Marie Curie’s radioactivity research and Rosalind Franklin’s DNA imaging to Katherine Johnson’s spaceflight calculations, Grace Hopper’s computing innovations, Rachel Carson’s environmental science, and Katalin Karikó’s mRNA research, women’s contributions have shaped the modern world. Their stories also reveal the barriers that kept many achievements hidden or undervalued. Recognizing women in science is not only a matter of honoring individual pioneers; it is essential to understanding the full history of discovery, innovation, and public knowledge.
General Collections, Archives, and Historical Recovery
Discoverability Lab Offers New Look at Historical Data and Machine Learning
| Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum | Smithsonian | February 24, 2025
This piece discusses how machine learning and network visualization can help identify women in science who were overlooked in historical datasets.
Using Data Science to Uncover the Work of Women in Science
| Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum | Smithsonian | February 24, 2022
This article explains how data science can reveal women whose scientific labor was hidden in institutional records, collections, and archival metadata.
100 Women in Science in Smithsonian History
| Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum | Smithsonian | January 2, 2022
This article highlights one hundred women whose research, fieldwork, collections work, and leadership helped build the Smithsonian into a major scientific institution.
Dr. Elizabeth Harmon Uncovers the Histories of Smithsonian Women in Science
| Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum | Smithsonian | February 19, 2020
This profile describes the archival work behind recovering the stories of women who advanced science at the Smithsonian.
Fixing the Leaky Pipeline
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | March 20, 2019
This article discusses the continuing underrepresentation of women in STEM and the structural barriers that affect research careers.
500 Women Scientists
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This resource introduces the 500 Women Scientists organization and its mission to make science more inclusive, accessible, and publicly engaged.
Nobel Prize Awarded Women
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This official list documents women Nobel laureates, including scientists whose prizes mark major milestones in the history of women in research.
Science Stories
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This resource points to a large database of women in science stories, useful for expanding research beyond the most famous names.
Women Do Science, Too
| Science History Institute | Science History Institute | n.d.
This collection features women who contributed to chemistry, engineering, medicine, and life sciences, with attention to the barriers that kept many of their achievements underrecognized.
Women in Science
| Smithsonian Institution | Smithsonian | n.d.
This Smithsonian spotlight gathers women scientists from across the institution’s collections, showing how women have shaped astronomy, biology, chemistry, anthropology, conservation, and museum science.
Women in Science: Reach Across the Stars
| Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory | Chandra X-ray Observatory | n.d.
This interactive project introduces women in astronomy, ocean science, visualization, and other fields, connecting modern scientific careers to a wider history of women in STEM.
Women in STEM
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This topic page gathers biographies and educational resources about women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Women Scientists
| Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum | Smithsonian | n.d.
This topic page brings together Smithsonian stories about women scientists, emphasizing their discoveries, obstacles, institutional roles, and contributions to public knowledge.
Women Who Changed Science
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This Nobel Prize feature profiles women whose discoveries transformed physics, chemistry, medicine, genetics, astronomy, and molecular biology.
Women and Science
| Science History Institute | Science History Institute Digital Collections | n.d.
This digital collection brings together images, objects, and documents related to women scientists, laboratory workers, scientific instruments, and women’s health technologies.
Medicine, Chemistry, Biology, and Genetics
Ladies Who Lab: Lesser-Known Women in Science, 1920–1970
| Annabel Pinkney | Science History Institute | January 11, 2024
This article highlights twentieth-century women scientists whose work appears in the Science History Institute’s library and archival collections.
Katalin Karikó
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This biography traces Karikó’s mRNA research and its role in enabling effective COVID-19 vaccines.
Carolyn Bertozzi
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This Nobel biography explains Bertozzi’s development of bioorthogonal chemistry and its importance for studying biological systems.
Emmanuelle Charpentier
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This biography covers Charpentier’s role in developing CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing.
Jennifer A. Doudna
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This Nobel biography describes Doudna’s work on RNA biology and CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing.
Frances H. Arnold
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This article explains Arnold’s directed evolution of enzymes and its impact on chemistry, biotechnology, and green manufacturing.
Tu Youyou
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This Nobel biography explains Tu Youyou’s discovery of artemisinin and its importance in malaria treatment.
Elizabeth Blackburn
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This biography covers Blackburn’s work on telomeres and telomerase, research that changed understanding of chromosome protection and cellular aging.
Carol W. Greider
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This Nobel biography explains Greider’s discovery of telomerase and her contributions to molecular biology.
Ada E. Yonath
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This Nobel biography describes Yonath’s research on ribosome structure and its importance for understanding protein synthesis.
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This Nobel biography describes Barré-Sinoussi’s role in identifying HIV and advancing research on AIDS.
Linda B. Buck
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This article covers Buck’s work on odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system.
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This Nobel biography explains Nüsslein-Volhard’s genetic research on embryonic development and its influence on developmental biology.
Gertrude B. Elion
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This biography describes Elion’s drug-development research and her role in creating treatments for leukemia, gout, viral infections, and transplant rejection.
Rita Levi-Montalcini
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This Nobel biography follows Levi-Montalcini’s discovery of nerve growth factor and her persistence through fascist exclusion and wartime disruption.
Barbara McClintock
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This Nobel biography covers McClintock’s discovery of mobile genetic elements and her long career studying maize genetics.
Rosalyn Yalow
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This biography covers Yalow’s development of radioimmunoassay, a breakthrough that transformed hormone measurement and medical diagnostics.
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This Nobel biography explains Hodgkin’s use of X-ray crystallography to determine the structures of important biochemical molecules.
Gerty Cori
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This Nobel biography describes Cori’s work on carbohydrate metabolism and her role as the first woman awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Irène Joliot-Curie
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This biography describes Irène Joliot-Curie’s work on artificial radioactivity and her place in a multigenerational scientific family.
Marie Curie: Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1911
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This Nobel page summarizes Curie’s 1911 Chemistry Prize for her work on radium, polonium, and radioactive substances.
Marie Curie
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This Nobel biography covers Curie’s scientific career, her partnership with Pierre Curie, and her recognition for research on radiation.
Alice Ball
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This article describes Ball’s development of an injectable chaulmoogra oil treatment for Hansen’s disease and the later recognition of her work.
Barbara McClintock
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This article explains how McClintock overcame institutional barriers and reshaped genetics through her work on chromosome behavior.
Dorothy Hodgkin
| Science History Institute | Science History Institute | n.d.
This biography traces Hodgkin’s discoveries in crystallography, including work on penicillin, vitamin B12, and insulin.
Elizabeth Blackwell
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This article covers Blackwell’s path as the first woman in the United States to receive a medical degree and her work expanding medical education for women.
Florence Nightingale
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography explains Nightingale’s role in professionalizing nursing and using data to improve medical care.
Florence Nightingale
| HISTORY | HISTORY | November 9, 2009
This article describes Nightingale’s work in nursing, hospital reform, statistics, and public health.
Marie Maynard Daly
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography explains Daly’s work in biochemistry and her place as the first Black woman in the United States to earn a PhD in chemistry.
Marie Skłodowska Curie
| Science History Institute | Science History Institute | n.d.
This biography explains Curie’s pioneering research on radioactivity, her discovery of polonium and radium, and her unmatched role as a two-time Nobel laureate.
Nettie Stevens
| Encyclopaedia Britannica | Britannica | n.d.
This article explains Stevens’s research on sex chromosomes and her role in the early history of genetics.
Patricia Bath
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This article covers Bath’s work in ophthalmology, her laser cataract device, and her advocacy against preventable blindness.
Rebecca Lee Crumpler
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography describes Crumpler’s work as the first Black woman physician in the United States and her medical service after the Civil War.
Rosalind Franklin
| Science History Institute | Science History Institute | n.d.
This article explains Franklin’s X-ray diffraction work on DNA and her central role in the discovery of the double helix.
Rosalind Franklin
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography discusses Franklin’s scientific training, DNA imaging, and later research on viruses, while addressing how her contributions were undervalued.
Rosalyn Yalow
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This article explains Yalow’s career in medical physics and her co-development of a technique that changed endocrinology and laboratory medicine.
Stephanie Kwolek
| Science History Institute | Science History Institute | n.d.
This biography explains Kwolek’s invention of Kevlar and her career in polymer chemistry.
Susan La Flesche Picotte
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This article explains Picotte’s career as one of the first Native American women physicians and her work serving the Omaha people.
Virginia Apgar
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography describes Apgar’s development of the Apgar Score, a rapid assessment that improved newborn care.
Women in Chemistry
| Science History Institute | Science History Institute | n.d.
This article and media collection traces women’s contributions to chemistry from early laboratory work to modern research and entrepreneurship.
Astronomy, Physics, and Mathematics
Anne L’Huillier
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This Nobel biography explains L’Huillier’s work on attosecond physics and ultrafast electron dynamics.
Andrea Ghez
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This biography covers Ghez’s astronomical observations that helped demonstrate the existence of a supermassive compact object at the center of the Milky Way.
Donna Strickland
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This Nobel biography describes Strickland’s work on chirped pulse amplification and high-intensity ultrashort laser pulses.
May-Britt Moser
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This article describes Moser’s research on grid cells and the brain’s positioning system.
Maria Goeppert Mayer
| Nobel Prize Outreach | NobelPrize.org | n.d.
This biography covers Mayer’s nuclear shell model and her place among the small number of women Nobel laureates in physics.
Andrea Ghez
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This profile explains Ghez’s astrophysics research and her advocacy for women in science.
Annie Jump Cannon
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography covers Cannon’s stellar classification work and her role among the Harvard women computers.
Caroline Herschel
| Encyclopaedia Britannica | Britannica | n.d.
This article describes Herschel’s astronomical discoveries, including comets, and her collaboration with William Herschel.
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This article describes Payne-Gaposchkin’s discovery that stars are primarily composed of hydrogen and helium.
Chien-Shiung Wu
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography explains Wu’s experimental physics research, including her role in testing parity violation.
Cynthia Dwork
| National Academy of Sciences | National Academy of Sciences | n.d.
This profile recognizes Dwork’s contributions to computer science, especially privacy-preserving data analysis.
Emmy Noether
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography explains Noether’s foundational work in abstract algebra and theoretical physics.
Henrietta Swan Leavitt
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography explains Leavitt’s work on Cepheid variable stars and its importance for measuring cosmic distances.
Hypatia
| Encyclopaedia Britannica | Britannica | n.d.
This biography introduces Hypatia as a mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher in late ancient Alexandria.
Lise Meitner
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This article covers Meitner’s role in explaining nuclear fission and the controversy over recognition for that discovery.
Maria Mitchell
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This article describes Mitchell’s discovery of a comet, her career as an astronomer, and her advocacy for women’s education.
Mary Somerville
| Encyclopaedia Britannica | Britannica | n.d.
This article describes Somerville’s mathematical writing, science communication, and influence in nineteenth-century astronomy and physics.
Maryam Mirzakhani
| Simons Foundation | Simons Foundation | July 18, 2017
This remembrance describes Mirzakhani’s originality in mathematics and the significance of her work in geometry and dynamical systems.
Maryam Mirzakhani
| Encyclopaedia Britannica | Britannica | n.d.
This article summarizes Mirzakhani’s mathematical research and her historic role as the first woman to receive the Fields Medal.
Sophie Germain
| Encyclopaedia Britannica | Britannica | n.d.
This article summarizes Germain’s mathematical work in number theory and elasticity during an era when women were largely excluded from formal scientific institutions.
Vera Rubin
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography explains Rubin’s astronomical evidence for dark matter and her influence on women in physics and astronomy.
Émilie du Châtelet
| Encyclopaedia Britannica | Britannica | n.d.
This article covers du Châtelet’s translation and interpretation of Newton, as well as her role in Enlightenment science.
NASA, Spaceflight, and Hidden Figures
NASA’s Hidden Figures Honored with Congressional Gold Medals
| NASA | NASA | September 19, 2024
This article covers national recognition of the women computers, mathematicians, and engineers whose work supported NACA and NASA.
Women of NASA Langley Research Center
| Sondra D. Woodward | NASA | March 4, 2024
This NASA article highlights Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughan, Christine Darden, and other women whose work shaped Langley’s research history.
Katherine Johnson’s Continuing Legacy at IV&V, Beyond
| NASA | NASA | August 25, 2023
This NASA article connects Johnson’s legacy to later generations of engineers, mathematicians, and mission safety work.
Human Computers: The Early Women of NASA
| Brynn Holland | HISTORY | December 13, 2016
This article introduces the women mathematicians, engineers, and scientists whose calculations supported NASA’s early space missions.
Langley’s Hollywood Moment Sheds Light on Pioneers
| NASA | NASA | December 2, 2016
This article explains how Hidden Figures brought wider attention to the women mathematicians behind early NASA missions.
NASA Helped Kick-Start Diversity in Employment Opportunities
This NASA history article discusses the agency’s employment history, including women computers such as Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Katherine Johnson.
Barbara Askins
This NASA profile describes Askins’s imaging technology work and her place among women inventors connected to space research.
Christine Darden
This NASA biography explains Darden’s engineering research on sonic booms and her place among the women associated with Hidden Figures history.
Donna Shirley
This NASA biography describes Shirley’s engineering leadership in Mars exploration and robotic spacecraft programs.
Dorothy Vaughan
This NASA biography covers Vaughan’s leadership of West Area Computing and her transition from human computing to electronic computing.
Ellen Ochoa
This NASA biography covers Ochoa’s work as an engineer, astronaut, and director of Johnson Space Center.
From Hidden to Modern Figures
This NASA feature connects the Hidden Figures legacy to modern women in aerospace science, engineering, mathematics, and exploration.
Hidden Figures
This NASA gallery presents images and context for Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and other women associated with early spaceflight.
Katherine Johnson Biography
This educational biography introduces Johnson’s life, mathematical talent, and contributions to NASA missions.
Katherine Johnson
This NASA biography describes Johnson’s mathematical calculations for early human spaceflight and her role in Project Mercury and Apollo.
Mae C. Jemison
This NASA biography summarizes Jemison’s medical training, astronaut career, and 1992 spaceflight aboard Endeavour.
Mae Jemison
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography covers Jemison’s career as a physician, engineer, and astronaut, including her place as the first Black woman in space.
Margaret Hamilton
This NASA article highlights Hamilton’s software engineering work on Apollo guidance systems.
Mary W. Jackson
This NASA biography describes Jackson’s work as NASA’s first Black female engineer and her advocacy for women and minority employees.
Nancy Grace Roman
This NASA biography describes Roman’s leadership in space astronomy and her role in planning the Hubble Space Telescope.
Sally K. Ride
This NASA biography documents Ride’s astronaut career, shuttle missions, and work inspiring young people in STEM.
Sally Ride
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography explains Ride’s role as the first American woman in space and her later work in science education.
Computing, Engineering, Invention, and Technology
Who Invented the Dishwasher?
| Becky Little | HISTORY | September 23, 2024
This article tells the story of Josephine Garis Cochran’s dishwasher invention and her work building and marketing the machine.
Martha Jones Becomes First Black Woman to Receive a U.S. Patent
| HISTORY | HISTORY | April 18, 2024
This article describes Martha Jones’s 1868 patent for a corn husker and sheller and places it in the history of Black women inventors.
Hedy Lamarr
| Dave Roos | HISTORY | March 5, 2024
This article explains Lamarr’s co-invention of frequency-hopping technology and its later importance in wireless communication.
9 Groundbreaking Women Inventors
| Becky Little | HISTORY | February 25, 2021
This article surveys women inventors whose innovations affected materials, home technology, safety devices, and communications.
Ada Lovelace
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography explains Lovelace’s work with Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine and her historical importance in computing.
Ada Lovelace
| Encyclopaedia Britannica | Britannica | n.d.
This article describes Lovelace’s mathematical writings and why she is often remembered as a pioneer of computer programming.
Fei-Fei Li
| Stanford HAI | Stanford University | n.d.
This profile describes Li’s work in computer vision, artificial intelligence, and human-centered AI.
Gladys West
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This article explains West’s mathematical modeling work and its connection to the development of GPS.
Grace Hopper
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography explains Hopper’s work on early computers, compilers, and programming languages.
Grace Hopper
| Naval History and Heritage Command | U.S. Navy | n.d.
This Navy history page covers Hopper’s computing career, naval service, and influence on modern programming.
Hertha Ayrton
| Encyclopaedia Britannica | Britannica | n.d.
This biography covers Ayrton’s work in electrical engineering, arc lamps, and experimental physics.
Karen Spärck Jones
| Computer History Museum | Computer History Museum | n.d.
This profile describes Spärck Jones’s work in information retrieval and her influence on search technology.
Lynn Conway
| Computer History Museum | Computer History Museum | n.d.
This profile covers Conway’s contributions to microelectronics design and computing.
Mary Anderson Patents Windshield Wiper
This article covers Mary Anderson’s windshield wiper patent and later women inventors who improved automobile safety technology.
Radia Perlman
| Internet Hall of Fame | Internet Society | n.d.
This profile describes Perlman’s networking innovations, including the spanning tree protocol, and her influence on internet infrastructure.
Natural History, Environment, and Life Sciences
Biruté Galdikas
| Encyclopaedia Britannica | Britannica | n.d.
This biography covers Galdikas’s orangutan research and her role in primate conservation.
Dian Fossey
| Encyclopaedia Britannica | Britannica | n.d.
This article summarizes Fossey’s gorilla research, conservation work, and complicated legacy in primatology.
Eugenie Clark
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This article covers Clark’s shark research, public science work, and contributions to marine biology.
Jane Goodall
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This article explains Goodall’s chimpanzee research and her influence on primatology, conservation, and public science.
Jane Goodall
| Encyclopaedia Britannica | Britannica | n.d.
This biography summarizes Goodall’s field research in Tanzania and her role in changing scientific understanding of animal behavior.
Jeanne Baret
| Encyclopaedia Britannica | Britannica | n.d.
This biography introduces Baret as an eighteenth-century botanist and the first woman known to have circumnavigated the globe.
Maria Sibylla Merian
| Encyclopaedia Britannica | Britannica | n.d.
This biography explains Merian’s pioneering illustrations and observations of insects, metamorphosis, and ecology.
Mary Agnes Chase
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography explains Chase’s fieldwork, grass taxonomy, and contributions to botany across the Americas.
Mary Anning
| Natural History Museum | Natural History Museum, London | n.d.
This article tells the story of Anning’s fossil discoveries and her importance in the early history of paleontology.
Mary Anning
| Encyclopaedia Britannica | Britannica | n.d.
This biography summarizes Anning’s fossil finds on the English coast and the limited recognition she received during her lifetime.
Mary Leakey
| Encyclopaedia Britannica | Britannica | n.d.
This article describes Leakey’s archaeological and paleoanthropological discoveries in East Africa.
Rachel Carson
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography covers Carson’s marine biology, nature writing, and environmental science legacy after Silent Spring.
Rachel Carson
| U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service | U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service | n.d.
This federal biography describes Carson’s work as a scientist and writer whose warnings about pesticides helped shape modern environmentalism.
Sylvia Earle
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography describes Earle’s ocean science, deep-sea exploration, and marine conservation advocacy.
Temple Grandin
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography explains Grandin’s work in animal science, livestock handling systems, and autism advocacy.
Wangari Maathai
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This article explains Maathai’s environmental activism, scientific training, and founding of the Green Belt Movement.
Ynes Mexia
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This article describes Mexia’s late-starting but highly productive career as a botanical collector and explorer.
Anthropology, Social Science, and Early Natural Philosophy
Margaret Cavendish
| Encyclopaedia Britannica | Britannica | n.d.
This biography discusses Cavendish’s natural philosophy and her importance as an early woman writer on science.
Margaret Mead
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography explains Mead’s influence on anthropology, public science, and debates over culture and human development.
Ruth Benedict
| Encyclopaedia Britannica | Britannica | n.d.
This article covers Benedict’s work in cultural anthropology and her influence on twentieth-century social science.
Zora Neale Hurston
| National Women’s History Museum | National Women’s History Museum | n.d.
This biography includes Hurston’s anthropological fieldwork as well as her literary career.
