Katsuko Saruhashi is a Japanese geologist and chemist who studied the
carbon dioxide levels in water long before gas was suspected of increasing
temperatures on earth. Her work earned her a doctor of science degree from the
From Lisa Yount’s book “A to Z of women in science and math”
Jerre Levy has expanded our knowledge of how the human brain works by
helping to show how the two halves or hemispheres, of the brain process
information different ways. Based on her studies of split-brain patients she
was able to come up with the proposal of how the two sides take
in information differently to produce the information that we know. Now Jerre
is a full professor at the
From Lisa Yount’s book “A to Z of women in science and math”
Hypatia was an Egyptian Mathematician, Astronomer and Physician, and the earliest woman scientist about whom much is known. According to her students her achievements included inventing a device for separating salt from sea water, as well as a plan astrolabe, which determined the positions of the sun, stars and planets and was useful for navigation and telling time. She also invented tools for identifying starts and their movements, measuring the level of water and for determining the density or specific gravity of liquids.
From Lisa Yount’s book “A to Z of women in science and math”
An American Medical Researcher, Elizabeth Lee Hazen improved methods for identifying human diseases cause by fungi, when she wrote a textbook on the subject. Also with Rachel Brown, she discovered a drug that was able to treat many of the diseases caused by fungi. The drug, Nystatin, is able to attack fungi which causes human illness, and destroy the fungus that is a widespread killer of trees.
From Lisa Yount’s book “A to Z of women in science and math”
Jane Goodall’s research in Africa on their chimpanzees is the longest continuous study of animals in the wild and for it she has been named a commander of the British Empire, given the Hubbard Medal from the National Geographic Society, and awarded the Kyoto Prize. During her research, Goodall made several observations that overturned beliefs about chimpanzees. For example she saw them using grass blades as tools to get insects, contradicting the common belief that humans only use tools, and she discovered the chimpanzees’ dark side when she saw them wage war.
From Lisa Yount’s book “A to Z of women in science and math”
Julia Anna Gardiner was an American Geologist and palaeontologist who were able to identify certain kinds of rocks, from ancient sea beds turned to stone, by identifying the fossils of molluscs embedded in them. The kinds of rocks she mapped out were important because many of them contained oil. During World War II when Japan sent fire bombs to the America’s North West Coast. Gardiner used shells in recovered bombs’ sand ballast to identify the beaches from which the sand and the bombs came.
From Lisa Yount’s book “A to Z of women in science and math”
Irmgard Flugge-Lotz’s improvements in the design of aircraft included the automatic controls that made jet aircraft possible. As an engineer and mathematician she worked out a formula for determining the distribution of lift over the span of a plane’s wings, from wing tip to wingtip in 1931. When she and her husband immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1948, Standford University hired her husband as a professor, but would only hire her as a lecturer and research assistant. While there, Irmgard perfected her research on automatic aircraft controls, and her book on the subject had Stanford make her the University’s first woman professor of engineering.
From Lisa Yount’s book “A to Z of women in science and math”
Sandra Faber, an astronomer, has provided groundbreaking new information about how galaxies formed and the material of which they are made. She has helped to show that the universe is “lumpy”, with clusters of galaxies drawing together to form still larger aggregates. She has also played a major role in the repair of the Hubble Space Telescope and the construction of the Earth’s largest optical telescope, the twin 400-inch Keck telescopes in Hawaii. She is currently building a new spectrograph for the second Keck, which will increase its power to observe distant galaxies by thirteen times.
From Lisa Yount’s book “A to Z of women in science and math”
Earle,
Sylvia Alice
Sylvia Earle has spent over 6,000 hours under water, unlike other marine biologists in the 1960’s, she dived to study undersea life in its own habitat rather than dragging it up in nets. In 1979 she donned a heavy plastic and metal “Jim suit” and dived 1,250 feet into the water near Hawaii. No other diver had gone this deep without being attached to a cable. Earle remained submerged for two and a half hours under water pressures of 600 pounds per square inch, observing creatures. Presently, Earle speaks and writes to warn people about over fishing, pollution and other human activities that threaten ocean life.
With her husband, Pierre, Currie discovered two radioactive elements and proved that atoms, once thought indivisible, could break down. She coined the term radioactivity to describe the process. In 1903, she co-won the Nobel Prize in Physics for her work on producing pure radium chloride, and describing her research. She later set out to uphold her reputation of proving that radium really was an element by producing radium as a pure metal. In 1911, Curie won a second Nobel Prize, in Chemistry, for her discovery and isolation of radium and polonium. She was the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize, and the first person to win two.
From Lisa Yount’s book “A to Z of women in science and math”
Agnodice successfully defied and changed the Athenian’s law of woman not being able to participate in medicine, with the help of her supporting patients. At the beginning of she disguised herself as a man by wearing men’s clothing, so she could go to Alexandria, Egypt around 300 B.C. to study medicine. Agnodice continued her disguise when she began to treat woman patients. Her woman patients soon discovered her true identity and “she became the successful and beloved physician of the whole sex”.
From Lisa Yount’s book “A to Z of women in science and math”
Theodora Colborn is an American Zoologist and Ecologist whom participated in the environmental movement by bringing awareness to the public about poisons in our environment. In 1987, Colborn discovered 16 kinds of animals whom ate fish from the Great lakes were still having difficulties in their reproduction cycle while she was coauthoring a book. Theodora believed that substances in the lake water were mysteriously acting as “hand-me-down poisons”. She suggested that particular pollutants may cause these problems by imitating or modifying the action of hormones, chemicals made in one part of the body that affects actions in another. In 1991, Colborn initiated a meeting of scientists to discuss the danger of pollutants, which may affect the hormones that control the development of living things. Presently, Theodora is a senior researcher with the World Wildlife Fund continuing to push for investigation of these pollutants.
From Lisa Yount’s book “A to Z of women in science and math”
Evans, Alice Catherine
Alice Evans played a significant role in discovering a dangerous disease, which could be transmitted in fresh milk. This discovery forced the dairy industry to begin heat-treating milk to kill bacteria. Searching for ways to keep this disease from contaminating fresh milk, she studied the bacteria in uncontaminated milk, which was believed to be safe. Evans was also quite interested in other contagious diseases namely Bacillus abortus which caused pregnant cattle miscarry. She found that this disease was frequently found in the milk of “healthy cows”. The facts that she collected caused her to suggest that the germ often found in cows milk was the cause of human disease. Because of her findings, in 1928 Evans became the first woman to be elected for president of the American Society for Microbiology.
From Lisa Yount’s book “A to Z of women in science and math”
Deborah is a Nigerian Geologist who studies the geophysics of Nigeria. She believes that geophysics can help countries identify important natural resources, for instance Africa is rich in several minerals which are required by many industries. Awareness of these minerals is important for a county because it gives them the ability to sell these resources in able to put money into their economy. Geophysics also has the ability to identify sources of precious groundwater and predict natural disasters.
From Lisa Yount’s book “A to Z of women in science and math”