Historical Women Scientists

Carolyn Shoemaker (b. 1929)

Carolyn Shoemaker (born Carolyn Spellman) was born in New Mexico to a schoolteacher mother and a business-owning father. She was not originally interested in science, and when the family moved to Chico, California, she attended the local college and obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history and political science. She met and married her husband, Gene Shoemaker, a planetary scientist. In 1980, Carolyn began working with her husband and was hired by the United States Geological Survey as a visiting scientist.

Shoemaker holds the record for the most comet discoveries (32 comets discovered). She is most famous for her co-discovery of the Shoemaker-Levy comet with her husband Gene and David Levy. The Shoemaker-Levy comet was ripped apart by the tidal forces of Jupiter in 1992. The technique used to discover new comets and asteroids involved looking at different images of the night sky taken in 45 minute time intervals through a stereoscope. Shoemaker holds an honorary doctorate from Northern Arizona University, and was awarded the U.S. National Aeronautic and Space Administration Exceptional Scientific Medal in 1996, along with various other awards.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (1900-1979)

When Cecilia Payne was four years old, her father died, leaving her mother to raise three children alone in Wendover, England. In 1919, Payne received a scholarship to Newham College, Cambridge University, where she studied botany, physics, and chemistry. She finished her undergraduate studies but did not receive a degree from Cambridge, because at the time they did not grant degrees to women. Afterwards, Payne felt that her only option if she remained in England was to become a teacher, so she began looking for opportunities to move to the United States. In 1923, Payne began a graduate program in astronomy at Radcliffe College (which is today part of Harvard University). She became the first person to earn a Ph.D. in astronomy from Radcliffe in 1925. Her most famous contribution to astronomy is probably her doctoral thesis, in which she showed that varying spectral absorption lines from stars were mostly related to ionization and the stars’ varying surface temperatures, not varying elemental composition. She also discovered the great abundance of hydrogen and helium in stars, leading to the realization that hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe.

In 1931, Payne was naturalized as an American citizen, and in 1934, she married a fellow astrophysicist, Sergei I. Gaposchkin. They settled in Massachusetts and Payne-Gaposchkin continued her work at Harvard. She eventually became the first female full professor and first female department chair at Harvard. Payne-Gaposchkin carried on with her studies of stars in order to understand the Milky Way and stellar evolution. She retired in from active teaching in 1966 but continued her research. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin died in 1979 at the age of 79.

Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000)

Born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler on November 9, 1914 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, Hedy Lamarr is most well known for her career as an actress. As a teenager, Lamarr began acting in movies in Germany. At the age of 18 in 1933, she married her first husband, Friedrich Mandl. Mandl was a munitions dealer with ties to Hitler and Mussolini, though he was half-Jewish himself (additionally, Lamarr’s mother was ethnically Jewish, though she had converted to Catholicism). Mandl was a controlling husband and became unbearable, and Lamarr fled to Paris to escape him in 1937. Lamarr was scouted and hired by MGM in Europe and moved to the United States to make films.

When World War II began, Lamarr felt that she needed to do something tangible to help the Allies. At the beginning of the war, she promoted war bonds, but then felt she needed to do something about naval torpedoes, which she had learned about during her first marriage. Along with her neighbor George Antheil, she created a technology to jam radio-controlled torpedoes, causing them to go off course. In 1942 Lamarr and Antheil were awarded a patent for their frequency-hopping system, though it wasn’t adopted by the United States military until 1962. Lamarr was honored by the Electric Frontier Foundation in 1997. The technology she invented was the basis for modern technologies like Bluetooth and CDMA telephones. Hedy Lamarr died in January 2000.

Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997)

Born the second of three children in Liuhe, Jiangsu Province, China, Chien-Shiung Wu was educated in China and graduated at the top of her high school class. She then went on to study first mathematics and then physics at National Central University in Nanjing. After graduating from university, Wu first spent two years pursuing graduate-level physics in China and then pursued her Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley, enrolling there in 1936. After she left China in 1936, Chien-Shiung Wu never saw her parents again. Wu received her Ph.D. in 1940.

After receiving her Ph.D., Wu and her husband moved to the East Coast of the United States. Wu taught at both Princeton University and Smith College and was also asked to join the Manhattan Project team at Columbia University, working on uranium enrichment via gaseous diffusion. In 1945, Wu accepted an associate research professor position at Columbia, and eventually became a full professor in 1958. Due to the political situation in China, she decided to become an American citizen in 1954.

Wu’s most famous work is probably her work on the conservation of parity and whether it applies to weak force interactions as it does to strong force interactions and electromagnetic interactions. Wu created an experiment to test this, and it turned out that parity is not conserved in weak force interactions — in other words, the weak force distinguishes between left and right and electrons were emitted preferentially in one direction over another. The theoretical physicists who proposed the theory Wu was testing won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1957, but Wu was not included. She did however become the first female president of the American Physical Society in 1975 and in 1978 she became the first recipient of the Wolf Prize in Physics.

Janaki Ammal (1897-1984)

Born in Tellichery (now Thalassery) in the state of Kerala, India, Janaki Ammal was one of 12 children born to her parents. Though her family encouraged girls to study fine arts, Ammal decided to study botany instead. She obtained a bachelor’s degree from Queen Mary’s College in Madras and got further education in botany at Presidency College, graduating in 1921. She traveled to the United States as a Barbour Scholar and got her master’s degree from the University of Michigan in 1925.

Ammal researched at various institutions in India, the United States, and the United Kingdom. She was in England from 1939-1950, during the time it was being bombed by Germany. While in England, she worked on chromosomes and ploidy in plants. In 1935, Ammal was elected a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, and in 1957 she entered the Indian National Science Academy. In 1999, the E.K. Janaki Ammal National Award for Taxonomy was instituted in her honor.

Rosalind Franklin (1920-1957)

Born to a Jewish family in London, Rosalind Franklin excelled in school as a child. She went on to attend Newnham College, Cambridge and graduated in 1941. After graduation, she went on to the British Coal Utilization Research Association, where she studied microstructures of carbon and graphite. This work enabled Franklin to receive her Ph.D. in physical chemistry. In 1947, Franklin moved to Paris to work as a researcher at Laboratoire Central des Services Chimiques de l'Etat, where she became well-versed in x-ray crystallography techniques. In 1951, she came back to London as a research associate at King’s College London, but due to clashes with supervisors and coworkers moved to Birkbeck College after only two years.

While at King’s College, Franklin put her background in x-ray crystallography to work on DNA. Due to her expertise, the research team made progress and got excellent x-ray diffraction images of DNA in a time when its structure was still unknown. However, Franklin and a colleague, Maurice Wilkins, clashed badly. By January 1953, Franklin was sure that there were two forms of DNA and that both were double-helical in structure. However, on January 30, 1953, Wilkins changed the course of science by showing James Watson (of Watson & Crick fame) one of the x-ray diffraction images that suggested a double helix structure. This image accelerated the publication of Watson and Crick’s DNA model, and because they got it before Franklin’s work was published, they did not have to credit her in the way they would have otherwise.

Rosalind Franklin died in 1957 of ovarian cancer, possibly caused by the amount of time she spent near x-ray sources without modern safety equipment. She was never nominated for the Nobel Prize, while Watson, Crick, and Wilkins all won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1962. Watson and Crick have each independently stated that Franklin’s work was key in their model.

Jane Goodall (born 1934)

Born in London to a businessman and a novelist, Jane Goodall was interested in animals and nature from an early age. As a child, she would sit and observe wild birds and animals, taking notes and making sketches. She also read extensively on ethology and zoology. As a young woman, Goodall met Louis Leakey, a famous anthropologist, and he hired her as a secretary and brought her to an anthropological dig at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. In 1958, Goodall returned to London to study primate behavior and anatomy. In 1960, she returned to Tanzania to the Gombe Stream National Park and began studying the chimpanzees there, and in 1962 she began studying at Cambridge for her Ph.D in ethology even though she had no undergraduate degree. She finished her thesis in 1965.

While studying the chimpanzees at Gombe, Goodall observed them to have distinct personalities and gave them names. She debunked two prevalent theories about chimps: that they could not use tools and that they were vegetarians. She observed chimps using twigs to eat termites and watched them hunt and kill smaller primates to eat. Goodall spent 15 years living full-time with the chimpanzees and has written numerous books on her experiences. Since 1980, she has received several awards for her work. Nowadays she spends her time campaigning for the protection of animals.

Valentina Tereshkova (born 1937)

Born in 1937 in the town of Maslennikovo in central Russia, Tereshkova was the daughter of a tractor driver and a textile plant worker. She began formal education at age 8, but left it around age 16 to work (she did continue correspondence courses). While working at a textile plant, Tereshkova became interested in amateur skydiving and made her first jump at the age of 22.

After Yuri Gagarin’s spaceflight, the Russians were interested in putting a woman into space. They searched for women who met certain physical characteristics and who were also parachutists. More than 400 women applied, but only five made the cut. One of them was Valentina Tereshkova. The candidates underwent intense training, including weightless flights, more than 100 parachute jumps, and rocket theory. In the end Tereshkova was the only one to actually go to space. On June 16, 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space. For this, she received various awards, including Hero of the Soviet Union.

After her spaceflight, Tereshkova earned her doctorate in engineering in 1977 and held various positions in the Soviet government. In 2013, at a celebration for her 70th birthday at Prime Minister Putin’s house, she stated that she would like to go to Mars, even if it was only one-way.

Hypatia (born 350-370 AD, died 415 AD)

The daughter of a mathematician, Hypatia was educated in Athens and then lived in Alexandria, Egypt, which at that time was part of the Byzantine Empire. Hypatia became a mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher. Though the only writings of Hypatia that have survived are believed to be collaborations with her father, Hypatia did write commentaries on other works and taught students out of her home. Around 400 AD she became the head of the Neoplatonic school in Alexandria. Hypatia never married and according to the Suda (a 10th century Byzantine encyclopedia), she once rejected a suitor with her menstrual rags.

In 415 AD, a mob of Christians, upset about tension between the Prefect and the Bishop of Alexandria, kidnapped Hypatia and took her to the Caesareum of Alexandria. There they stripped her clothes, beat her to death with roofing tiles, tore apart her body, and finally burned her limbs.

Alice Ball (1892-1916)

Alice Ball was born in Seattle, Washington, to James and Laura Ball. In 1903, the Ball family moved to Hawaii, hoping that the climate would affect James Ball’s health for the better, but he died less than a year later so the family returned to Seattle in 1905. For her undergraduate education, Ball attended the University of Washington and graduated with 2 degrees in pharmaceutical chemistry and pharmacy.

In 1914 Ball entered a master’s program at the then College of Hawaii (now University of Hawaii). She graduated in June 1915 as both the first African American and the first woman to graduate with a master’s degree from the school. During her research for her master’s thesis, Ball focused on isolating compounds from chaulmoogra oil in order to treat leprosy. She successfully developed a method to separate the ethyl esters out, but became sick and died before she could publish her results. Her cause of death is unknown.  Her method of isolating the ethyl esters from chaulmoogra oil was commonly used in order to treat leprosy until the 1940s, but the University of Hawaii did not recognize her work until 2000.

Nyota Uhura (2239-2???)

Born in Kenya, Nyota grew up in Mombasa. As a child, she studied at the Institute for Advanced Mathematics. Her father was in Starfleet, and Nyota followed in his footsteps by attending Starfleet Academy beginning in 2257. She studied communications, learning spatial navigation, duotronics, and cryptography.

After graduation from Starfleet Academy, Uhura’s most notable role was as Chief Communications Officer on the USS Enterprise under the command of Captain James T. Kirk. Later, Uhura went on to captain her own ship, the USS Hermes, and maintain a high level position in Starfleet Intelligence, passing along information she obtained from subspace frequencies.

Ida Noddack (1896-1978)

Ida Noddack was born Ida Tacke in 1896 in Wesel, Lackhausen (in modern-day Germany).  She was one of the first German women to study chemisty and was the first German woman to become a professional chemist, earning her Ph.D at the Technical University of Berlin in 1921. Afterwards, she went to work at  the Physico-Technical Research Agency in Berlin.  In 1925, her group at the Research Agency discovered rhenium, element 75. In 1926, Ida married a fellow chemist from her research team, Walter Noddack. They worked together as partners, but often Ida’s positions were unpaid.

In 1934, Ida produced a paper titled “On Element 93,” which criticized Enrico Fermi’s earlier claim that he might have produced transuranic elements. This paper is most notable today because it contains the first speculation about nuclear fission: “it is conceivable that the nucleus breaks up into several large fragments, which would of course be isotopes of known elements but would not be neighbors of the irradiated element.” At the time, this paper was mostly ignored, but time would prove that nuclear fission was indeed possible.

Ida Noddack was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry three times, in 1933, 1935, and 1937. The first nomination was for her alone, while the last two nominated Ida and her husband together. She did not win any of the three times.

Dorothy Hodgkin (1910-1994)

Born in Cairo, Egypt to archaeologist parents, Dorothy Crowfoot became interested in chemistry as a young girl.  Her mother supported this interest, and Dorothy began studying chemistry at Oxford at age 18. After her undergraduate degree, she pursued a Ph.D. in chemistry at Cambridge, focusing on X-ray crystallography. In 1934 she moved back to Oxford and, later, taught a student named Margaret Roberts, later to become the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Dorothy Hodgkin is known for her use of X-ray crystallography to determine biomolecular structures, particularly vitamin B12, in 1948, and insulin, which she finally resolved in 1969. In 1964, Hodgkin was the third woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and in 1965 she was the second woman ever (after Florence Nightingale) to receive the Order of Merit.

Mary Leakey (1913-1996)

Born in London in 1913, Mary Leakey (née Nicol) was the daughter of an artist. Growing up, she was interested in drawing and archaeology. She successfully combined those interests at the age of 17, obtaining a position as an illustrator at an archaeological dig in England. Mary audited courses in archaeology and anthropology at University College.  In 1932, she began illustrating archeological books, which was how she met Louis Leakey.  Mary and Louis were married in 1937, after Louis's divorce was finalized.

The Leakeys spent the years between 1935 and 1959 at Olduvai Gorge in modern-day Tanzania. In 1948, Mary Leakey found the first partial skull specimen of Proconsul africanus, an ancestor of both apes and humans. In 1959 came the next big discovery, a partial skull of Australopithecus boisei, an early human ancestor that was 2 million years old.  In 1960, the Leakeys discovered the first specimens of Homo habilis, as well as evidence they were proficient in making and using stone tools. After Louis's death in 1972, Mary independently discovered the famous Laetoli footprints in 1979. These footprints do not have knuckle impressions and therefore demonstrate that early humans were bipedal 3.7 million years ago, long before the evolution of the modern human brain. Throughout her later years, Mary Leakey continued to write articles about her discoveries.  She died in 1996.