366: Maryam Mirzakhani Mathematician and Professor at Stanford University Born: 12 May 1977, Tehran, Iran Died: 15 July 2017, Palo Alto, California, United States of America Maryam was the first woman and the first Iranian to be awarded the Fields Medal. The award, which was first presented in 1936, is known as the Nobel of…
365: May-Britt Moser Psychologist and Neuroscientist Born: 4 January 1963, Fosnavåg, Norway May-Britt is the department head of the Centre for Neural Computation at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2014. Sharing the award with three others, the prize citation states, “For their discoveries…
364: Katia Krafft Geologist and Volcanologist Born: 17 April 1942, Soultz-Haut-Rhin, France Died: 3 June 1991, Mount Unzen, Japan Katia, alongside her husband, perished on a volcano’s slopes when it unexpectedly erupted. Around forty journalists and other volcanologists died with them. Katia and her husband studied hundreds if not thousands of volcanoes and hoped to…
“My whole philosophy of Barbie was that, through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices.” 363: Ruth Handler Invented Barbie and Co-Founded Mattel Toy Company Born: 4 November 1916, Denver, Colorado, United States of America Died: 27 April 2002, Los…
362: Sau Lan Wu Particle Physicist Born: c.1940’s, Hong Kong, China Not much is known for certain about Sau, including her birth year (it is given as sometime during World War II). Evidently, she grew up in terrible poverty in the aftermath of the war, her mother, brother, and she abandoned by Sau’s father. Once…
361: Jocelyn Bell Burnell Astrophysicist Born: 15 July 1943, Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom Original Name: Susan Jocelyn Bell In 1968 she received her PhD in radio astronomy from Cambridge University. Jocelyn discovered pulsars in 1967, and in 1974 her supervisor was given the Nobel Prize for her discovery (which she has claimed to be…
360: Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard Biologist Specializing in Cell Development Born: 20 October 1942, Heyrothsberge, Germany Christiane received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1995. She shared the prize with two others, and the citation for the award reads, “For their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development.” After high school she tried…
359: Patricia Bath Ophthalmologist & Laser Scientist Born: 4 November 1942, New York City, New York, United States of America Died: 30 May 2019, San Francisco, California, United States of America Patricia invented a new way of doing cataract surgery (called laserphaco). She was the first female ophthalmologist to be appointed to the faculty at…
358: Sylvia Earle Marine Biologist, Explorer, Author, and Lecturer Born: 30 August 1935, Gibbstown, New Jersey, United States of America Sylvia has been a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence since 1998, becoming the first woman to achieve that role. She is also the chairman and President of Mission Blue—a global alliance to protect and act to explore…
357: Annie Easley Computer Programmer and Hidden Figure Born: 23 April 1933, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America Died: 25 June 2011, Cleveland, Ohio, United States of America Before becoming a scientist little girls everywhere could look up to, Annie was fighting racial prejudices and Jim Crow Era voting restrictions. When Annie went to register…