Meet Hypatia, the ancient mathematician who helped preserve seminal texts
Her dramatic death often overshadows her epic life, but it shouldn't
Biochemistry
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Her dramatic death often overshadows her epic life, but it shouldn't
Biochemistry
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
The trained zoologist and a bureaucrat pushed for environmental safety her whole life
Ecology
Wake Forest University
The ichthyosaur she found helped prove extinction
Botany
University of Florida
Much of her Cold War work on missiles is still classified today
Ecology
Wake Forest University
Through meticulous crossbreeding, she showed that DNA is far more complicated than scientists originally thought
Neuroscience
LA Biomed
Eighty years after her death, scientists are still processing the plants she collected
Marine Geology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
She pushed to end sterilization, legalize abortion, and give poor people access to quality care
Psychology and Nutrition
University of South Australia
She recreated her own informal learning process in print, to much success
Chemical Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
The lawmaker, who died last month, pushed for public health reform
Microbiology
Her unorthodox research showed us that chimpanzees are far more human than we thought
Environmental Physiology
McMaster University
Through sheer tenacity she has forged a career in a male-dominated field
Neuroscience
LA Biomed
John Glenn wouldn't blast off until she double-checked the IBM's calculations
Ecology
Wake Forest University
She bested anti-Semitism and sexism to have a Nobel-winning career
Neuroscience
McGill University
As a kid, she dissected blue jays and built a garden whose path was lined with poison ivy
Neuroscience
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
From childhood, she preferred 'to stay up and watch the stars than go to sleep'
Environmental Physiology
McMaster University
She became the first black woman to earn a PhD in psychology from Columbia University
Neuroscience
McGill University
She experienced many obstacles, but her perseverance and passion always won
Cell Biology
Carnegie Mellon University
She discovered the Earth's 'backbone' even though men wouldn't let her on a ship for 17 years
Ecology
Wake Forest University
Le Guin was a testament to how fiction reveals truth, empathy, and the beauty of knowledge
Nergis Mavalvala explores gravitational waves and quantum physics
Neuroscience
Northeastern University
She was the first woman to win one โ much less two โ Nobel Prizes
Neuroscience
McGill University
Progressive in science and art, she disregarded sexist norms of Qing-dynasty China
Genomics
University of Alberta
โAny girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupidโ
Computational Neuroscience
Breaking through barriers of race and gender, she pursued the beauty of pure math
Neuroscience
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
She helped discover DNA, got snubbed by her contemporaries, and kept right on going
Evolutionary Biology
University of Massachusetts Medical School
"The ENIAC was a son of a b**** to program"
Neuroscience
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
You know she went to space. But do you know which TV show inspired her to go?
Molecular Pharmacology
University of Pittsburgh
She was a true renaissance woman
Neuroscience
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Two decades before Sally Ride, a Soviet woman rose from obscurity to become the first female cosmonaut
The Nobel Prize-winning biologist revolutionized how we think about our noses
Williamina Fleming pioneered a system for classifying stars and discovered the Horsehead Nebula
The first woman to win a Fields Medal was only 40, but she revolutionized mathematics
Chien-Shiung Wu conducted some of the most elegant particle physics experiments of her time
Alice Augusta Ballโs died at the age of 24. Ninety years later, we finally started recognizing her contributions.
Meet the British anthropologist who completely changed our understanding of the hominid ancestral tree
Jane Cooke Wright saved millions by making chemotherapy more effective
Most scientists spend their careers hoping for a single big discovery. Sau Lan Wu has had three and is still searching for more.
Marie Maynard Daly worked at a time when our understanding of DNA was changing in big ways
Janaki Ammal lived simply. Her life was anything but.
The โQueen of Carbonโ didnโt earn her title by playing by the rules