369: Sofia Kovalevskaya Mathematician and Education Rights Advocate Born: 15 January 1850, Moscow, Russia Died: 10 February 1891, Stockholm, Sweden Original/Alternate Spellings: Sofya, Sophie, or Sonya Sofia stated her exposure to math began at a young age when her room was repapered with her father’s old calculus notes rather than wallpaper (this despite the fact…
“The name of Emily Warren Roebling will…be inseparably associated with all that is admirable in human nature and all that is wonderful in the constructive world of art” -Abram Hewitt (On the Bridge itself): “An everlasting monument to the self-sacrificing devotion of a woman and of her capacity for that higher education from which she…
367: Maria Mitchell First Female Astronomer in the United States Born: 1 August 1818, Nantucket, Massachusetts, United States of America Died: 28 June 1898, Lynn, Massachusetts, United States of America Her name was pronounced Mariah (think Mariah Carey). Maria was also the first American scientist to discover a comet, the first woman elected to the…
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…
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…
356: Vera Rubin Astronomer Who Pioneered Work on Galaxy Rotation Rates Born: 23 July 1928, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America Died: 25 December 2016, Princeton, New Jersey, United States of America Vera “uncovered the discrepancy between the predicted angular motion of galaxies and the observed motion” (Wikipedia). Today, she is most remembered as being…
355: Esther Lederberg-Simon Microbiologist and Pioneer in the Field of Bacterial Genetics Born: 18 December 1922, Bronx, New York, United States of America Died: 11 November 2006, Stanford, California, United States of America Growing up, Esther was especially close to her grandfather. After unsuccessfully attempting to teach her male cousins Hebrew, Esther asked him to…