From the ancient Roman astronomer Hypatia to the ancient Chinese chemist Fang, women have contributed to science from the earliest days of innovation. But many of their discoveries<\/a> were ignored or dismissed during their lifetime because science was seen as the domain of men. In some cases, men took credit and received accolades for the work of their female collaborators. These are just a few brave, brilliant female scientists who overcame impossible obstacles to change the world. <\/span><\/p>\n
As a Jewish woman born in Italy in 1909, <\/span>Rita Levi Montalcin<\/span><\/a>i faced extraordinary barriers to success in science. Yet when she died at age 103, she was a Nobel Laureate whose discoveries in revolutionized neuroscience.Her father was resistant to his daughter pursuing education, as many fathers were at the time. She persisted and eventually graduated from medical school with the highest honors. But less than two years into her career as a research assistant, Mussoluni’s government banned Jewish people from working in professional careers. Refusing to give up her work, Levi Montalcini set up a makeshift lab in her bedroom to continue studying nerve cells in chicken embryos. This research was the basis of her most important and Nobel Prize-winning discovery in 1952. <\/span><\/p>\n
As a child in Jiangsu, China, <\/span>Chien-Shiung <\/span><\/a>Wu’s parents enthusiastically supported their daughter’s curiosity and academic pursuits. Unfortunately, she would find that the world was not always so welcoming. After excelling at school and university in China, Wu decided to continue her education in physics at the University of Michigan. But when she heard that the university reportedly wouldn’t let women use the front door of the student center, she changed her plans, heading to the Univerisity of Berkeley instead. At Berkeley, Wu quickly made a name for herself and became known as an exceptionally talented experimental physicist. But she still faced blatant sexism throughout her studies. An article about Wu’s accomplishments at Berkeley repeatedly references her physical appearance and calls the 29-year-old “a petite Chinese girl.” <\/span><\/p>\n
NASA mathematician<\/span> Katherine Johnson<\/span><\/a> had a perfectly ordinary start to life. But the path she took and the pioneering work she did would be anything but ordinary. Born in 1918 to a working-class black family in a small West Virginia town, Johnson was gifted at math, even as a very young girl. Black children were denied an education beyond middle school in her small town. Johnson’s family was forced to live in a city 130 miles away part-time so she and her siblings could attend high school. Johnson graduated high school at only 14 before enrolling in the historically black West Virginia State University. She excelled in every math class and graduated at 18 with the highest honors. <\/span><\/p>\n
Women healers were commonplace in <\/span>Susan La Flesche <\/span><\/a>Picotte’s Omaha tribe. But outside of her reservation, women’s path to becoming physicians was unfamiliar and mostly untravelled. After witnessing Indigenous people being denied medical treatment, Picotte decided to pursue medical training to care for her people. She attended a boarding school designed to assimilate Native American children into white culture before enrolling in the historically black university, Hampton Institute. Picotte graduated with honors and defied the more socially-acceptable expectations of marrying or becoming a teacher to study medicine at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania.<\/span><\/p>\n
Perhaps the most famous example of a female scientist who was denied her due by the scientific community, <\/span>Rosalind <\/span><\/a>Franklin’s many accomplishments are sometimes overshadowed by her collaborators’ slight. Born in London in 1920, her family described Franklin as an “alarmingly clever” child with an aptitude for math, science, and Latin. Her graduate research focused on the molecular structure of coal, and she discovered that it could be used to separate different kinds of molecules. This discovery is the basis of carbon filters used to purify water and air. Franklin. After earning her Ph.D., Franklin moved to Paris, where she became an expert in X-ray crystallography, a highly-specialized technique used to study the structure of molecules and atoms. <\/span><\/p>\n
In 1950, Franklin began working in a lab alongside fellow biophysicist Maurice Wilkins, who treated her like an assistant rather than his peer. This caused ongoing tension between the two scientists. Unwayed from her work, Franklin developed a humidity-controlled camera to capture images of DNA that one colleague called “the most beautiful X-ray photographs of any substance ever taken.” With these images, Franklin first determined that DNA has a helical, or spiral, structure. Franklin’s work and <\/span>images<\/span><\/a>, along with the work of Wilkins, were instrumental in the final model of the DNA double-helix, constructed by James Watson and Francis Crick at Cambridge University. However, only the three men received recognition for the discovery. This is partly because Franklin’s role in the discovery was downplayed, particularly by Watson, and partly because Franklin died of ovarian cancer two years before Watson, Crick, and Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine.<\/span><\/p>\n
Many people know that childhood tongue twister, “She sells seashells by the seashores.” But not everyone knows the woman who inspired was real-life <\/span>fossil hunter Mary Anning<\/span><\/a>, whose discoveries had a lasting impact on paleontology. Born to a poor family in the rocky beach town of Lyme Regis, England, in 1779, Anning survived being struck by lightning when she was only 15 months old. She was a bright child, despite receiving little formal education. Anning and her family collected fossils along the shore to sell to tourists for extra income. While fossil-hunting with her brother at age 12, the two discovered the skull of an ichthyosaur, a dolphin-like ocean reptile. Anning spent the next year slowly uncovering what turned out to be the first ichthyosaur skeleton ever unearthed. <\/span><\/p>\n
Born during the first year of the American Civil War, <\/span>Nettie <\/span><\/a>Stevens’s dream of becoming a scientist was unusual. She was an excellent student and encouraged to enter the more “appropriate” teaching field after high school. Steven’s worked and saved her teaching wages for years until she could afford to enroll at Stanford University at 35. Seven years, she completed her college and graduate education and began her career as a genetics researcher at Bryn Mawr College. Stevens was interested in the genetic factors that make organisms male or female and studied the reproductive cells of mealworms. During her research, Stevens noticed that male and female mealworms have different chromosomes and that the presence of the smaller chromosome determined the sex of the worm.<\/span><\/p>\n
Trailblazing genetics researcher <\/span>Barbara McClintock<\/span><\/a> spent much of her life fighting against people who doubted her. As a girl growing up in Connecticut and New York, she was described as an independent but shy child with a love of science. She wanted to attend college to study agriculture, but her parents were resistant. They believed that if their daughter gained too much education and independence, she would never settle down and marry. They weren’t wrong. McClintock never married. Instead, she revolutionized the field of genetics and became the first woman in history to win an unshared Nobel Prize.<\/span><\/p>\n
In the late 1930s, <\/span>Ruby Hirose<\/span><\/a> was immersed in groundbreaking research in antitoxins that would help pave the way for the polio vaccine a decade later. Her work at the University of Cincinnati gained considerable recognition in her field. It also spared Hirose the fate of thousands of other Japanese Americans who were forced into concentration camps during World War II. Unfortunately, her family was not so fortunate. Although there were internment camps across the country, most were on the west coast. In 1942, Hirose’s father and siblings living near Seattle, Washington, were sent to an internment camp. The fact that she had already left her hometown by the start of World War II is likely the only reason Hirose was not also sent to the camps and was able to continue her research.<\/span><\/p>\n
A popular book about the researchers who studied disease-causing bacteria sparked a life-long passion for science and medicine that led <\/span>Marie Maynard Daly<\/span><\/a> to her own transformative discoveries. She was encouraged in her interest by her father, whose dream of studying chemistry had been thwarted by financial constraints. As a black woman in the 1940s, Daly overcame dual discrimination to make an impact on her field. She graduated from college with honors before beginning her graduate education in chemistry. In 1947, Daly became the first black woman in the U.S. to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry. <\/span><\/p>\n
Most scientists dream of just one career-making discovery. In her over 50 year career, <\/span>Sau Lan Wu<\/span><\/a> has three—and she’s showing no signs of slowing down. Born in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong during World War II, Wu grew up in extreme poverty. Her mother encouraged her to find her independence through education. Wu received a full scholarship to Vassar College, where she decided to study physics like her hero Marie Curie. After completing her graduate education at Harvard, Wu launched her history-making career.<\/span><\/p>\n
Wu’s most well-known work is her critical role in the 2012 <\/span>discovery of the Higgs boson<\/span><\/a>, a particle so foundational in physics that it was nicknamed “the God particle.” The particle was the last piece needed to complete the standard model of particle physics, which describes the building blocks of the universe. The search for the Higgs boson led to some of the most research advances in modern physics. Wu also helped confirm the existence of two fundamental physics particles. In 1974, she was part of the team that discovered the J\/psi particle, which earned her advisor the Nobel Prize in Physics. Wu was also instrumental in discovering gluon, which is necessary to form protons and electrons. Now in her 80s, Wu continues her research at the University of Wisconsin and CERN. <\/span><\/p>\n
Before <\/span>Maria Sibylla Merian<\/span><\/a> began studying insects, many 17th-century scientists considered them “gross” and unworthy of study. But Merian knew better. A skilled artist and dedicated naturalist, she illustrated and described previously unknown traits of dozens of insect species. The stepdaughter of a still life artist, Merian began collecting and drawing insects, spiders, and plants at 13. Between 1675 and 1678, she published her three volumes of scientific illustrations. Then, in 1699, Merian went on a research expedition in Suriname to collect insect and plant specimens. <\/span><\/p>\n
It would have been easy for <\/span>Mary Agnes Chase<\/span><\/a>, who fought hard for her position as one of the most distinguished botanists in history, to stay silent on political issues. Her critics certainly would have preferred that. But Chase was never afraid to stand up for what she believed in. She had a difficult start in life. Her father, an Irish railroad worker, died when she was a toddler, forcing the family to move to Chicago. She received little formal education, leaving school after elementary school. Her husband died just a year after they married. Still, she carried on in her career as an illustrator for the University of Chicago, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).<\/span><\/p>\n
When <\/span>Rachel Carson<\/span><\/a> wrote her revelatory book <\/span>Silent Spring<\/span><\/i>, she couldn’t have known how influential it would be. Her writing laid out the harmful effects of chemical pesticides. Then, she went a step further, taking the government and pesticide manufacturers to task for spraying poorly-regulated chemicals into the environment. Carson’s book almost single-handedly launched a global environmental movement against harmful industrial chemicals. Most impressively, S<\/span>ilent Spring<\/span><\/i> and the movement it started were directly responsible for the U.S. banning use of the popular agricultural insecticide DDT, which causes seizures, tremors, and vomiting in humans. <\/span><\/p>\n
Born to a Jewish family in Austria in 1878, <\/span>Lise Meitner<\/span><\/a> faced tremendous obstacles to her success in science. Her father, one the first Jewish lawyers to practice law in Austria, was a trailblazer in his own right. He hired tutors to support his daughter’s budding curiosity. However, when Meitner wished to study science at university, her father encouraged her to become a teacher instead. She passed her teaching certification but decided to enroll at the University of Vienna to study physics. Meitner was a brilliant student, completing her Ph.D. in Physics with the highest honors. After graduating, she struggled to find a research position. In 1907, she moved Berlin, where she spent the next 30 years of her career.<\/span><\/p>\n
Where Do We Find This Stuff? Here Are Our Sources:<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n
17 Famous Female Scientists Who Helped Change the World<\/span><\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n
22 women of science who changed the world<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
Ten Historic Female Scientists You Should Know<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
22 Pioneering Women in Science History You Really Should Know About<\/span><\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n