Pioneering Women in Science
Celebrate the groundbreaking achievements of remarkable women who revolutionized science and technology, from radioactivity to GPS navigation and computer programming.
- Women
- Science
- Pioneers
- Technology
Some of the stories included
Henrietta Leavitt's Cosmic YardstickHow a quiet astronomer cataloging stars on photographic plates created a tool that measured the universe and changed astronomy forever.
Doctor Gladys WestGladys West, the mathematician whose model of the Earth's true shape made GPS accurate, and who went unrecognised for decades.
Frances Kelsey and ThalidomideThe FDA reviewer who refused to approve thalidomide in 1960, preventing a U.S. tragedy and changing drug laws forever.
The Discovery of DNA’s Double HelixHow Watson and Crick worked out the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953, drawing on Rosalind Franklin's X-ray image Photo 51 and beating Linus Pauling to the answer.
Hypatia of AlexandriaThe story of Hypatia, the 4th-century philosopher killed by a mob in 415, separating the historical woman from the later legend.
Katherine Johnson and the Apollo 11 TrajectoryThe career of NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, who calculated flight paths for Alan Shepard, checked John Glenn's orbit and worked on Apollo trajectories and backup navigation.
Ada Lovelace: The First Computer ProgrammerThe life of Ada Lovelace, whose 1843 notes on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine set out the first published computer program and foresaw machines that could work with more than numbers.
Marie Curie and the Discovery of RadioactivityMarie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and then the first person to win a second in a different scientific field.
Annie Jump Cannon and the Harvard ComputersAnnie Jump Cannon and the Harvard 'Computers' classified hundreds of thousands of stars, creating a system astronomers still use today.
More like this
ArchimedesDiscover how Archimedes moved ships with pulleys, calculated pi with 96-sided shapes, and defended Syracuse.
The Formation of the Grand CanyonHow the Grand Canyon formed: nearly two billion years of rock, a rising plateau and the Colorado River cutting down through it.
The History of Forensic ScienceHow forensic science learned to identify criminals, from the first reliable arsenic test and Bertillon's body measurements to fingerprinting, blood typing and Alec Jeffreys' discovery of DNA profiling.
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