Women in STEM

1. Sally Ride With multiple degrees in physics from the esteemed Stanford University, she was the first American woman to travel to space. Her job on the space shuttle was to help work its robotic arm. She also wrote multiple children’s books about exploring space. After her trips to space, she received the honor of being added to the Astronaut Hall of Fame. The rest of her life was spent doing activist work to get more women into STEM.

2. Cecilia Payne An astronomer and astrophysicist, she contributed greatly to the field of astronomy. When she got her doctorate in astronomy, Otto Struve dubbed it “the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy.” This turned out to be true, as it dealt with the abundance of elements in the atmospheres of stars. Also, because of her intelligence and major contributions, she became the first female department chair and professor in Harvard's history.

3. Elizabeth Blackwell A British doctor, she became the first woman in America’s history to receive a medical degree. Despite the many roadblocks and obstacles she had to face to overcome discrimination and sexism, she managed to get into a medical college in rural New York. After becoming a doctor, she returned to New York city, opening a clinic to treat poor women as well as her own medical college. She also became a professor of gynecology at the new London School of Medicine for Women.

4. Augusta Lovelace An English mathematician, she is most well-known for creating the first prototype of a digital computer program, which earned her the title of the first computer programmer. Throughout her life, she taught herself and was educated by private tutors in mathematics and logic. It is because of her contributions to the Analytical Engine that the early programming language was named Ada, after her.

5. Grace Hopper Both a member of the Navy WAVES and a Lieutenant to the Bureau of Ordnance Computation Project at Harvard, she was widely known for her work on the early prototype of the electronic computer. He was heavily involved in UNIVAC’s creation and invented the first computer compiler. This led her to significantly contribute to one of the earliest standardized computer languages, COBOL. Her work led to her being the first woman to earn the title of being named a distinguished fellow of the British Computer Society. After retiring, she gave hundreds of lectures a year on computers.

6. Roberta Bondar She was a true renaissance woman, being an astronaut, neurologist, physician, educator, and photographer. She was the first Canadian female astronaut and the first neurologist in space. After her space travels, she published multiple books related to that and to exhibit her photography. Because of her many accomplishments, there are many scholarships, schools, and other organizations in Canada named after her. She is also involved in many associations to try to give back to the community and help others, which is one of her passions alongside her many academic-related ones.

7. Barbara Askins A mother of 2 children and a former teacher, she got 2 degrees in Chemistry to join the Marshall Space Flight Center as a chemist. Her work involved improving the quality of geological and astronomical images that astronauts took, and because of the techniques she pioneered in doing so, she was the first woman to be selected for the honor of being the National Inventor of the Year. Her work in radiology was an immensely successful patent, and her technique was soon used by NASA. After her professional career, she served as a mentor and role model to other women interested in the field of science in the late 1900s.

8. Sandra Faber With a PhD from Harvard, this is one professor not to be taken lightly. She has done multiple projects with the Hubble Space Telescope and has been fascinated by the vast unknown of space ever since she was a child. She helped shape the history of cosmology by studying the effects of dark matter on galaxies, and how quarks affected the particle physics pertaining to this topic. For her work in the field, she has received multiple awards, including the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship and the National Medal of Science.

Sources: https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/who-was-sally-ride-k4.html https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201501/physicshistory.cfm https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/elizabeth-blackwell https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ada-Lovelace https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/grace-hopper https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/roberta-bondar https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/barbara-askins https://gruber.yale.edu/cosmology/sandra-faber