5 Inspiring Female Scientists You Should Know About

In 2011, the U.S. Commerce Department initiated an investigation into a puzzling trend among women in the workforce. While women comprised 48 percent of the U.S. workforce in 2009, they held only 24 percent of positions in STEM — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — fields [source: Beede et al.]. Notably, this percentage remained stagnant from 2000 to 2009, indicating that despite higher-paying opportunities, STEM industries failed to draw more women into their ranks.

The challenge of boosting female participation in STEM careers has long perplexed experts and scholars. Despite women accounting for 50 percent of science and engineering graduate students, showcasing their intellectual curiosity in these fields, many abandon STEM careers post-graduation [source: National Science Foundation]. To address this, leading female scientists and mathematicians advocate for increased visibility of accomplished women in STEM, serving as role models to inspire future generations [source: Francl]. Historically, one of the earliest renowned mathematicians was, in fact, a woman.

Hypatia, born around A.D. 350 in Alexandria, Egypt, was the daughter of Theon of Alexandria, the president of the Alexandrian Museum [source: Deakin]. Following her father's scholarly legacy, Hypatia excelled in mathematics and astronomy. As an adult, she became a distinguished teacher of mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy, and may have contributed to Ptolemy's "Almagest," a seminal text on the Earth-centered universe model [source: Zielinski].

The five female scientists you’ll encounter have left indelible marks on history, much like Hypatia. From a brain specialist who lived past 100 to a brilliant companion of Voltaire, each boasts a remarkable tale fueled by an unquenchable thirst for understanding science, mathematics, and the unseen forces that shape our world.

5: Emilie du Châtelet

While often remembered as Voltaire’s lover, Emilie du Châtelet achieved far more than her association with the Enlightenment philosopher. Born Gabrielle-Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil in 1706, she leveraged her family’s affluence to secure private tutors in mathematics and languages. As an adult, the married du Châtelet delved into the study of energy and its fundamental components. In the late 17th century, Isaac Newton proposed that an object’s energy was the product of its mass and velocity. Du Châtelet’s most notable achievement was translating Newton’s monumental work, “Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica,” from Latin into French. Collaborating with Voltaire, she validated that velocity in the energy equation should indeed be squared.

Her contributions became pivotal in 1905 when Albert Einstein formulated the mass-energy equivalence equation, e=mc². By then, physicists had already embraced squaring velocity in energy calculations, largely due to du Châtelet’s foundational work. Thus, in Einstein’s iconic equation, while “c” represents the speed of light, the decision to square it stems directly from du Châtelet’s earlier insights [source: Bodanis]. Voltaire himself praised her, writing, “She has a genius that is rare/ Worthy of Newton, I do swear,” a testament to her brilliance before her untimely death at 40 [source: Weingarten].

4: Rosalind Franklin

Chemist Rosalind Franklin embarked on her brief yet impactful scientific journey by studying coal and concluded it with research on the structure of viruses. However, her most significant and contentious contribution emerged during her efforts to unravel the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA. Although James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for identifying the DNA double helix, their breakthrough might not have been possible without Franklin's foundational work [source: NPR].

Born in 1920, Franklin aspired to be a scientist from a young age, despite the field being dominated by men at the time. Her determination and intellect prevailed, leading her to secure a research assistant role at King's College in London after completing her doctorate in physical chemistry at Cambridge University. At King's College, Franklin employed X-ray diffraction, a method that captures structural images by reflecting X-rays off molecules, to photograph delicate DNA strands.

Strained relationships between Franklin and her colleague, Maurice Wilkins, inadvertently enabled Watson and Crick to advance in the DNA discovery race. Without Franklin's consent, Wilkins shared her diffraction images with Watson, offering a critical insight into the double helix structure. In 1953, Watson and Crick published their groundbreaking DNA findings in the journal Nature, while Franklin received no acknowledgment for her pivotal contribution. Recognition for her work came only after her death from ovarian cancer at the age of 37.

3: Lise Meitner

Lise Meitner, a physicist often referred to as the "mother of the atomic bomb," was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1878 [source: San Diego Supercomputer Center]. After pursuing physics at the University of Vienna, she joined forces with Max Planck and Otto Hahn to investigate radioactivity. In 1918, Hahn and Meitner, who maintained their partnership for decades, identified the element protactinium. Later, in 1923, Meitner explained the Auger effect, a phenomenon where an atom releases one or two electrons to achieve stability [source: Atomic Archive]. Despite her discovery, the process was named after French physicist Pierre Auger, who described it two years later, marking the first instance of Meitner's contributions being overshadowed.

As her career progressed, Europe descended into the chaos of World War II, prompting Meitner to flee to Stockholm after Germany annexed Austria in 1938. By then, Meitner was experimenting with bombarding atomic particles with neutrons. In 1939, she and her nephew and lab partner, Otto Frisch, coined the term nuclear fission and published a seminal paper on the subject. While nuclear fission became the foundation for the atomic bomb, Meitner did not participate in the Manhattan Project, despite her moniker. Although she was the first to discover nuclear fission, her former collaborator Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for it in 1944.

Meitner never received a Nobel Prize for her pioneering work and passed away in 1968. However, her contributions endure in the periodic table. In 1992, a newly identified radioactive element was named meitnerium, symbolized as Mt, in her honor [source: San Diego Supercomputer Center].

2: Shirley Ann Jackson

Shirley Ann Jackson, born in 1946, is celebrated for her trailblazing achievements. As a theoretical physicist, she became the first Black woman to earn both bachelor's and doctoral degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1973. At the time, she was one of only two Black women in the U.S. to hold a doctorate in physics [source: The New York Times]. In 1995, President Clinton appointed her as the first woman to chair the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Her distinguished career and advocacy for STEM funding and innovation also made her the first African American woman elected to the National Academy of Engineering, the first to receive the Vannevar Bush Award for lifetime contributions to science, and the first to lead a top-50 national research university, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute [source: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute].

Her remarkable accomplishments stemmed from unwavering dedication and intellectual brilliance. After graduating from MIT, Jackson conducted extensive physics research at AT&T Bell Laboratories from 1976 to 1991. As her career advanced, she became a prominent advocate for science, education, and innovation in the U.S. In 2004, she was elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a year later, Time magazine hailed her as "perhaps the ultimate role model for women in science" [source: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute]. Given her profound impact, from AT&T labs to the White House, this description barely scratches the surface of her influence.

1: Rita Levi-Montalcini

Rita Levi-Montalcini was not only a leading figure in brain science but also the oldest living Nobel laureate until her passing on December 30, 2012. Born in Italy in 1909, she pursued medical school despite her father—an electrical engineer and mathematician—initially opposing her higher education [source: Levi-Montalcini]. After graduating in medicine and surgery in 1936, she chose to focus on neurology rather than clinical practice. During World War II, she evaded perilous war zones, continuing her research in secret and even working briefly as a military medical doctor.

Following the war, Levi-Montalcini and her collaborator Stanley Cohen investigated how an embryo's nerves expand during development [source: Abbott]. Their work led to the discovery of nerve growth factor, the essential protein that drives neural growth. This groundbreaking finding earned them the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1986, when Levi-Montalcini was 77. On the brink of her 100th birthday in 2009, she revealed to the Times of London that she still worked daily at the European Brain Institute, which she established [source: Owen]. When asked for her secret to longevity, she advised minimal sleep, controlled eating, and keeping the mind constantly engaged and curious [source: Owen].