Celebrating STEMinists
Recognizing Women’s Contributions to STEM
With Women’s History Month coming up, let’s reflect back on the many accomplishments of several women who have made and changed history in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). I am grateful that these pioneers, who I call “STEMinists,” helped pave the way for other women to pursue careers in STEM.
Today, women represent a third of professionals in STEM fields, but this is a huge improvement relative to when the women highlighted below were active in their careers, often being one of a few in their field. I want to especially recognize the ethnically diverse women featured below, who had to overcome both gender and racial discrimination to make their marks in history.
Nora Stanton Blatch Barney
Nora, like her grandmother Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was a suffragette. Not only did she fight for gender equality, she was the first American woman to become a civil engineer and the first woman to be admitted to the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1905. This feminist-turned-STEMinist even sued the Society for refusing to admit her as a full member due to gender, despite meeting all the requirements for membership.
Marie Curie
Madame Curie was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize, and the first person to win in two different disciplines, winning the Nobel Prize in Physics (1903) and Chemistry (1911). Though most famous for her work on radioactivity, she also added two elements to the periodic table for discovering polonium and radium. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree as her daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1935).
Grace Hopper
An American computer scientist in the U.S. Navy, Rear Admiral Hopper earned her nicknames “Amazing Grace” and “First Lady of Software” by inventing the first programming language written in English (as opposed to mathematical notation). In 1959, she invented the Common Business-Oriented Language (or COBOL), which is still used today. Legend has it that she coined the term “debugging” after a moth that was stuck in a computer got removed.
Katherine Johnson
Featured in the book and movie “Hidden Figures,” Katherine Johnson, an African American mathematician and space scientist, completed the calculations for NASA’s space missions. Nothing big. Just the flight path for Freedom 7 in 1961 that brought the first U.S. astronaut into space and the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing. Her calculations were so accurate that John Glenn asked her to verify the electronic computer’s calculations before his own flight orbiting the Earth. Finally, a man who asked for directions!
Hedy Lamarr
If you work remotely, then you can thank Hedy Lamarr for her contributions allowing us to work efficiently at home. You may be thinking: But isn’t she just an actress? Yes. Although she starred in 30 Holly wood films in the 1930s and 1940s, Hedy was also an inventor. She developed technology that enabled radio signals to jump frequencies, which makes Bluetooth and Wi-Fi possible.
Ada Lovelace
A writer and mathematician, Ada is considered to be the founder of scientific computing and the first computer programmer. She wrote the first computer algorithm, which was used for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine. And she did this in 1842!
Florence Nightingale
Most know Florence as the inventor of modern nursing, but she was also a statistician. Her effective use of data visualization to present statistics helped reduce the death rate from 42% to 2% during the Crimean War in the 1850s. Her Rose diagram, which displayed the causes of death during the War, showed that far more soldiers died from infections than from wounds. She campaigned for better conditions in the barracks and sanitation became a major priority for the British Army.
Ellen Ochoa
This trailblazer applied to be an astronaut three times before being admitted by NASA. Talk about determination! The first Latina astronaut to go to space, Ellen travelled aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1993, a year after Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space, and ten years after Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. Ellen is also the second woman to be named director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
Radia Perlman
You are reading this article courtesy of Radia Perlman, who most people refer to as “The Mother of the Internet.” Without Radia, I wouldn’t have known about some of these amazing women when I did research for this piece. As a computer scientist, she developed the algorithm behind the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) in the 1980s, an innovation that made today’s Internet possible. She improved on this work by designing TRILL (Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links), which optimized the use of bandwidth. If that wasn’t enough, she also holds more than 100 patents!
Gladys West
I would literally be lost without Gladys. She was an African American mathematician. From the mid-1970s through the 19080s, she collected data from satellites and programmed the mathematics and calculations that brought about the invention of GPS.
Chien-Shiung Wu
Also known as the “First Lady of Physics,” Chien-Shiung was a Chinese American experimental physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project. She is most famous for her Wu experiment, which contradicted the law of conservation of parity. Her discoveries helped her two male colleagues win the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics. Despite being snubbed, she persevered and was awarded the inaugural Wolf Prize in Physics in 1978.
This list is just a mere fraction of the women who have made unique contributions to STEM. These STEMinists embody brilliance and courage by continuing to strive despite obstacles and opposition. Take a moment to appreciate the contributions of women in the everyday things we sometimes take for granted.
