Beyond Curie - Women in Science

Whenever we think about women in science, the first name that comes to mind is Marie Curie, probably the most famous female physicist. However, the world has known many other incredible women scientists, from the dawn of history to our present day.

From Hypathia of Alexandria in 400 BC, and Katherine Johnson in the 1950s, women across history have made breakthrough scientific discoveries that have improved our lives, and helped in the advancement of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), but not without a cost.

For centuries, education was reserved for males, and a career in science was considered unsuitable for women. Those who exhibited a scientific interest were often discouraged, and those who persevered, did so against the wishes of parents and family, openly defying all the approved social conventions, which expected women to stay at home to tend her family, keeping in the shadow of her husband and men in general.

Marie Curie with her husband and one her children.

It is not surprising, thus, that many of these scientific trailblazers were daughters of scientists, who fostered their interest, or came from wealthy families who could afford books, tutors, and academic education.

As centuries went by, education at all levels became available for men and women, but the fierce gender restriction in the scientific fields continued. Many of these pioneers found themselves the only females in a room full of patronizing men, and even after earning their degrees they faced severe discrimination at work.

Despite all these challenges, each one of these women scientists succeeded in their field, leaving a legacy of discoveries to advance science and knowledge in general, as well as advancing the cause for gender equality.   

Here’s twelve of some of the most relevant women scientists from the Age of Enlightenment to present day.

1.- Maria Winkelmann (1670 -1720)

Maria Margarethe Winckelmann-Kirch was one of the first women astronomers, and the first woman to discover a new comet. Her father and uncle defended education for women, so Maria received a complete education since childhood, working later on as an assistant to astronomer Christopher Arnold. Her talent was such that, as a scientist she was treated as an equal by her husband, astronomer Gottfried Kirch, working together in their astral observations.

In the early 1700s during the course of her observations, Maria discovered a new comet, by the name of C/1702. However, following the conventions of their time, Kirch published her discovery under his own name, and only revealed Maria as the true discoverer eight years later.

Maria continued her research, publishing several studies on the Auroral Borealis, sunspots, and comets, which were highly regarded by the scientific community of her time but never earned her academic recognition. Twice she was denied a position at the Berlin Observatory, but her son Christfried, by then a skilled astronomer, obtained the role. Maria’s daughters, also accomplished astronomers, went on to work as assistants to their brother.

Maria is credited with the improvement of the Berlin Academy of Science, and to turn it in the main astronomic center in Europe and the world at the time.

2.- Laura Bassi (1711 - 1778)

Laura Maria Caterina Bassi Veratti was the first woman to have a doctorate in science, and the second woman in the world to earn the Doctor of Philosophy degree. She was also the first salaried female teacher in a university, the University of Bologna, and for a time, its highest paid employee. Bassi was also the first female member of any scientific establishment, when she was elected to the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna in 1732, at the age of 21, after publicly defending forty-nine theses before a group of professors.

Coming from a wealthy family, Bassi was privately tutored from age five in major disciplines, including the arts, sciences, and mathematics. Noticing her ability, Prospero Lambertini, Archbishop of Bologna and later Pope Benedict XIV, became her patron, allowing her to continue her education. 

After earning her doctoral degree at the University of Bologna, Bassi was appointed by the university as its first female teacher, but was barred from teaching all-male classes. With the help of Lambertini, Bassi obtained permissions for private classes, and to carry out experiments at the University, which allowed her to continue her research in physics and mechanics.

In 1776, Bassi took up the Chair of Experimental Physics, a position which he held until her death, and thanks to her Newton’s mechanics theories gained widespread acceptance in Italy.

3.- Dorothea Erxleben (1715 - 1772)

Dorothea Christiane Erxleben was the first female medical doctor in Germany, and the first woman licensed by a regulating medical body to practice medicine in the world. The daughter of a doctor, Dorothea was instructed in medicine by her father from an early age. 

Inspired by the achievements of Laura Bassi, Erxleben was an advocate of education for women and women in science, becoming thus one of the first promoters for these causes. In 1742, she even published a tract [tratado] arguing that women should be allowed to attend university. 

Following this publication, she received a special dispensation from Frederick the Great to carry on her medical studies, and was thus admitted to study formally. Dorothea received her MD from the University of Halle in 1754, becoming thus the first German woman to receive such degree. 

In addition to her medical practice, and continuing her female education campaign, Erxleben examined the socio-cultural obstacles that prevented women of her generation from studying, such as housekeeping chores and raising children, setting thus the foundations in the fight for female education.

4.- Sophie Germain (1776 - 1831)

Born in the last decades of the Age of Enlightenment, Sophie was the daughter of a cultivated and liberal bourgeois, who actively participated in the French Revolution. Her interest for mathematics arose after reading that Roman soldiers has killed Archimedes while he was absorbed on a geometry problem. But her parents did not approve of her interest for science, and when they learned that she sneaked into the library to study at night, they tried to stop her, leaving her without candles, heating, or clothes. But Marie always managed to continue studying, and in the end her parents caved.

At age 18, Sophie presented a mathematical paper to the newly founded Paris Polytechnic School, signing it with the name ‘Antoine-Auguste Le Blanc’, since the school would not admit women but until 1972. Her work greatly impressed mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange, who wished to meet the author, and when he learned her real identity, he congratulated her, predicted her success as analyst, and encouraged her to keep on studying. By then, Sophie began an irregular correspondence with the German mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss, under the pen name ‘Monsieur Le Blanc’. Sophie would never meet Gauss, but their exchange refined her knowledge and inspired important mathematical ideas and theories.

Her work on Fermat’s last theorem was Sophie’s greatest accomplishment, settling the bases for subsequent generations of mathematicians studying this conjecture, up until its resolution over 350 years later, in 1995. Later on, her research focussed on the theory of elasticity, and in 1816 she obtained the Prize of Mathematical Sciences from the Paris Science Academy. Sophie published several books on this subject, as well as mathematical papers about the curvature of surfaces, and about numeric theory, as well as an essay about Science Philosophy, praised by Auguste Comte.

Since she did not have formal education, and professionally was only recognised as property holder, Sophie continued her mathematical work independently for the rest of her life. Sadly, cancer ended her life at age 51, leaving many of her works incomplete.

Nowadays, Sophie is remembered with a street and a high School in Paris that bear her name, and by the “Sophie Germain Prize”, awarded by the Science Academy to the most important mathematical work of the year. However, the lack of formal education, and the endless bocks imposed by society due to her gender, meant that this brilliant self-taught mathematician never reached her full development, and serves us as a morale to pave the way for more women in science. 

5.- Justicia Espada Acuña (1893 - 1980)

Justicia was the daughter of a engineer José Acuña Latorre who, unlike most men of his time, encouraged his daughters to study, be independent, and forge their own futures. Although women in Chile could attend University since 1877, the main careers chosen were pedagogy, medicine, nursing, and social work, since these were the socially accepted jobs for women. 

After completing her highschool studies, Justicia entered the career of Pedagogy in Mathematics at the Universidad de Chile, but she got bored with it, changing the following year to civil engineering. The change was a bold one: the faculty didn’t even have a bathroom for women. But none of this discouraged Justicia, who persevered in her studies. Despite the continuous gender discrimination she faced by peers and academicians, she graduated in 1919, becoming thus the first woman civil engineer in Chile and South America. 

In 1920, Justicia began working as a calculator for the Roads Department at the prestigious railroads company, Empresa de Ferrocarriles del Estado. She continued working with them until her retirement in 1954, at the ripe age of 61.

Although Justicia did not come up with any great scientific invention or discovery, her courage to defeat all odds, and her perseverance and determination to achieve her goals encouraged more girls to chose mathematics and engineering as viable professions, which even in 1959 represented only the 1% of the new enrollments.

Moreover, Justicia managed to find a balance between her professional career and her family life, no small feat in itself,  raising seven children. 

In 1991, the Chilean government created the Justicia Acuña Mena Award to honor outstanding women engineers every two years. Justicia’s success as a mother and a scientist professional remain an inspiration to girls and women all over, who see in her an example to follow. 

6.- Dorothy Hodgkin (1910 - 1994)

Born in Cairo, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin developed a love for chemistry from an early age, being one of the two girls allowed to study it at her school. Later, Dorothy went on to study chemistry at Oxford University, and later obtained her PhD at Cambridge. In 1934 she went back to Oxford to take on a Research Fellowship in Chemical Crystallography. 

There, she helped the advancement of the x-ray crystallography technique, which was the key to studying and understanding three-dimensional structures of biochemical compounds, such as cholesterol iodine, the chemical formulae of penicillin, and vitamin B12.

In 1964, Hodgkin became the first and only British woman to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, in recognition of her work of establishing the structures of vitamin B12 and penicillin. However, despite her notable achievement, the newspapers of the time reported it with the headline: “Nobel Prize for British Wife” and “Nobel Prize for a Wife from Oxford”.

Dorothy continued her work as a researcher and professor at Oxford University, where she mentored the future Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, another great woman in science. Dorothy’s work on X-ray crystallography helped to advance this molecular research technique, completing innovative research on insulin and improved treatments for diabetes.

Thanks to her notable achievements, she received the Order of Merit in 1965, becoming the second woman to be awarded this prestigious distinction.

7.- Hedy Lamarr (1914 - 2000)

Although technically not a scientist, self-taught Hedy Lamarr had a passion for science. From physics to engineering, to medicine, many of her inventions proved not only extremely useful but well ahead of her time.

The most famous of them was conceived at the start of WWII : a radio guidance system using frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology for torpedoes, so that they could not be tracked or jammed if intercepted by the enemy. 

Having been previously married to an ammunition manufacturer, Lamarr had knowledge of weapons and munitions, which helped her in the creation. Alongside composer George Antheil, they developed a device that synchronized a miniaturized player-piano mechanism with radio signals. They drafted designs for the frequency-hopping system, and they patented it in 1942. 

Unfortunately, the invention was hard to implement and the US Navy was not receptive to inventions from outside the military, but it was eventually adapted in 1957 to develop a sonobuoy. An updated version of their design was installed on Navy ships in 1962, and today , various spread-spectrum techniques are incorporated into Bluetooth technology, and are similar to methods used in legacy versions of Wi-Fi. 

In addition, Lamarr’s vision also helped improve aircraft aerodynamics for Howard Hughes, who by then was constructing aircrafts for the war effort. Lamarr suggested to use more streamlined shapes, based on natural forms such as fish and birds, heralding modern aircraft design, and the use of Biomimicry. 

Lamarr and Antheil's contributions were formally recognized in 1998, and inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.

8.- Joan Clarke (1917 - 1996)

Joan Elisabeth Lowther Murray was an English cryptanalyst and numismatist best known for her work as a code-breaker at Bletchley Park during the Second World War. Despite her brilliancy for mathematics, she found herself discriminated by a system that did not see it as a suitable career for a woman.

In 1936 she won a scholarship to attend Cambridge University, where she gained a double first degree in mathematics. But she was denied a full degree because, up until 1948, the university awarded these only to males. 

Clarke's sharp mathematical abilities were first discovered in an undergraduate Geometry class by Gordon Welchman, who years later was recruited to supervise the Enigma decoding operations, as part of the WWII efforts. Recalling Clarke’s abilities, Welchman recruited her to join a team of cryptanalysts and decoders at Bletchley Park, as part of the highly secret 'Government Code and Cypher School' (GCCS).

Clarke was initially placed in an all-women group who mainly did clerical work. But as her unique mathematical abilities surfaced and were more demanded, she was included in the main cryptology and decoding team. 

Her role in decrypting the Nazi Germany's secret communications system, saved millions of lives and helped to end the war months before its estimated time. Joan Clarke was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1946, but although she continued working in numismatics, the social conventions of the time refrained her expansion from greater development.

9.- Rosalind Franklin (1920 - 1958)

Rosalind Franklin exhibited an interest in science, and particularly in chemistry, from an early age. She was offered a scholarship to study chemistry at King’s College London, and she later completed a Doctorate in Cambridge; but although she graduated in 1945, the University did not begin to award full degrees to women until 1948. 

Rosalind went to Paris, where she specialized in x-ray crystallography. She returned to London in 1951, to work at the King’s College crystallography unit, where she faced an environment of gender discrimination (she wasn’t even allowed into the Professor’s room for being a woman).

In 1952, Rosalind took the now famous ‘picture 51', which clearly allows to deduct the double helix structure of the DNA. However, her data was used without her permission by team members James Watson and Francis Crick, as evidence to support their own research on the DNA model. They published the finding in 1953, without mention of Rosalind Franklin.

Franklin went on to lead a team of scientists at the University of Birbeck, continuing her research work on the molecular structure of viruses, something which nowadays is key to immunization efforts and disease control.

In 1962, Watson, Crick and Maurice Wilkins went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the DNA molecular structure model. Unfortunately, Rosalind had died of ovarian cancer in 1958, and the Academy did not award prizes posthumously. But history has righted this wrong, and in later years Rosalind has received her due credit for this pivotal scientific discovery.

In 2003 the Royal Society established a prize in her name in order to help outstanding women in science.

10.- Tu Youyou (1930 - Present)

Women scientists have had to tackle all kinds of obstacles, and politics have not been out of the equation, as in illustrated by Tu Youyou’s case.

Born in China, she studied traditional Chinese medicine at the Peking University in Beijing. At that time, malaria was a disease that killed millions every year, and Tu Youyou focused her studies on finding a cure. After much research on traditional herb remedies, she stumbled upon the anti-fever properties of sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua) in a 1300 year old book she found during a trip. Tu Youyou deducted that, if the plant was effective against fever, it could work to inhibit malaria. 

After years of intensive lab work, at age 39 she finally managed to isolate the active of sweet wormwood, the artemisinina. However, her discover came during the height of the Cultural Revolution in China, in 1969. By then, the Maoist regime banned most scientists, but Mao made an exception with her research due to the vast numbers of deaths caused by malaria. 

Tu youyou published her findings in 1977, but the political turmoil caused by the end of the Cultural Revolution obscured her name from this discovery. She continued working at the Academy of Traditional Medicine in Beijing, until finally her deserved recognition came in 2011, when she was awarded the prestigious Albert Lasker award for clinical medicine research, deeming her discovery of arteminsina as “the most important pharmaceutical intervention in the last half-century”. 

In 2015 Tu Youyou was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine, becoming at 84 the first Chinese woman to receive this prestigious award. Her discovery has been applied globally, and has saved millions of lives worldwide. Tu Youyou continues to work at the Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Beijing up to this day.

11.- Jocelyn Bell Burnell (1943 - Present)

Jocelyn Bell Burnell grew up in a Quaker farm and, since his architect father had worked on the Armagh observatory, surrounded by astronomy books. After earning a degree in Physics from the University of Glasgow, Jocelyn went on to Cambridge for a Doctorate in radio Astronomy. It was there, working as a research assistant, where she would make a discovery that would revolutionize astrophysics and change her life forever.

Her doctorate thesis was focused on the study of the recently discovered quasars. But in 1967, during her research she measured a string of extremely regular radio pulses. She checked her finding with her adviser, Anthony Hewish, so as to eliminate error in determining their source. They discovered that these patterns of low radiation emanated from neutron stars, later called ‘pulsars’ by the press. 

In 1974, the discovery received the Nobel Prize, but only the men involved in the research received the award. Although she was the rightful discoverer, Bell was not even mentioned. In a great show of nobleness, Jocelyn played down the controversy stating that “I believe it would demean Nobel Prizes if they were awarded to research students, except in very exceptional cases, and I do not believe this is one of them.”

Although her devotion to her diplomat husband meant that she was required to travel constantly and often far from astronomic observatories, Jocelyn continued her work on a different field of astronomic research, becoming an expert in Gamma ray, infrared, and millimetre wavelength (sub millimetric) astronomy. She also taught at several Universities, including University of Southampton and University College London, as well as working at the Royal Observatory.

Fortunately, Jocelyn has received recognition and multiple accolades during her lifetime. She was Member and President of the Royal Astronomical Society, and was the first female president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and of the Institute of Physics. She was also dean of Science at the University of Bath, visiting professor at Oxford University, was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and received the title of Dame in 2007.

Other awards include the Michael Faraday Prize in 2010, a Royal Medal from the Royal Society in 2015, and the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in 2018. In another show of her nobleness, Jocelyn donated the entire cash prize (£2.3 millions) to help women, minority and refugee students in the field of physics research, funding thus the “Bell Burnell Graduate Scholarship Fund”.

Jocelyn continues to actively work in her field up to this day.

12.- Wanda Diaz Merced (1983 - Present)

Wanda’s story exemplifies that even physical disabilities aren’t an obstacle for a career in science. Goaded to study by her parents, who had not gone to school, Wanda always knew she wanted to work in science. She chose medicine, since it was the only scientific career she knew about, but destiny had different plans.

Affected by diabetes since childhood, Wanda began to lose her eyesight during her teens due to diabetic retinopathy. By the time she went to College, her eyesight was so poor that she began failing all classes. Worse still: she realized that medicine was very visual and required perfect vision. Everything seemed against her; but then a College friend doing a NASA outreach project played to her the live audio of a sun burst, and Wanda found her calling.

She changed her career path to Astronomy, and even applied to an internship at NASA. There, Wanda found a supportive mentor in Robert Candey, learning all about sonification, a technique in which Gamma rays can be translated into sound, and thus ‘see’ what the eye can’t see. It was the perfect field for Wanda.

In addition to become a specialist in sonification, Wanda is an advocate for women and disabled persons in science, often giving talks on the subject. Her TED talks video has already garnered millions of visits. “If disabled persons are allowed into the scientific field”, she stated, “a huge and titanic explosion of knowledge will happen”.

Wanda was named one of the seven most trailblazing women in science by the BBC, worked at the European Gravitational Observatory in Pisa, and currently leads the project AstroSense at the Astronomic Observatory in Cape Town, South Africa.

***

Although coming from different backgrounds and different eras, all of these women share the same determination, courage, and passion for science, which allowed them to defeat all odds on their path.

Fortunately, in recent years there’s been a greater awareness on the need to incorporate women into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), and different initiatives all over the world have appeared to increase the number of girls opting for scientific careers. 

Among other scientific organizations, NASA is taking active measures to increase the number of women scientists at high levels in their ranks. Among them are Sandra Cauffman, subdirector of the Earth Sciences division, Adriana Ocampo, director of the LUCY mission, Farisa Morales, program administrator at the Jet Propulsion lab, Denna Lambert, program manager, and Elyse Fosse, systems engineer of the Perseverance rover mission, to name only a few.

However, there’s still a lot of work to be done. According to a recent study, women make up only 28% of the workforce in STEM, although the numbers of women college applicants to careers in science are increasing every year. 

We can't wait to see the discoveries these new women scientists will bring into our world.

Did You Know That...?

February 11th is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.

In German-speaking countries, Inventor’s Day is November 9th, in honor of Hedy Lamarr’s birthday.

To Learn More...

Learn about more women in science in this informative and visually appealing design project celebrating them:
www.beyondcurie.com

Learn about the L’Oreal-Unesco Award for Women in Science:
www.forwomeninscience.com

Learn about the Association for Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics: www.awis.org

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Sources: CNN, Wikipedia, Mujeresbacanas, Royal Society, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Mujeresconciencia.com, Nobelprize.org, NASA, Museum of Natural History of the University of Oxford.