Rita Levi-Montalcini, 1909 – 2012

Very few women in Neurobiology have made a name for herself quite like Rita. Her father was a mathematician and engineer and her mother was a painter. Rita wanted to attend college and pursue a career. Her father was harshly against it but eventually relented. She graduated from the University of Turin in 1936 with a medicine degree. This was followed up by degrees in neurobiology and psychiatry. The Germans invaded Italy a few years later which caused them to go into hiding for a few years. In 1947, she was offered a job at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. Her plan was to stay for a year at most, but was there for 30 years. Her career flourished and exploded from this point.

Throughout her career she received several awards. One of them is the Nobel Prize for Medicine/Physiology in 1986 with Stanley Cohen. They discovered Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) and Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF). She was the first woman inducted in the Enciclopedia Italiana board from 1993 to 1998. In 1963, became the first woman to get the Max Weinstein award for neurobiology among others. She died at the age of 103.

Chien Shiung Wu, 1912 – 1997

The “First Lady of Physics,” came from humble beginnings and became one of the greatest physicists in the 20^th century. She was born in Liuhe, China in the Taicang area. She had an early advantage since her father was a strong proponent for women’s education. He even started a school for girls in China. Chien went to a few different schools and finished top of her class. She immigrated to the United States to attend University of California. She received a Ph. D in Physics in 1940. She married a classmate from UC Berkeley two years later. They moved to the East Coast from here. She taught at Princeton and shortly after this was recruited to the Manhattan Project at Columbia University. She worked on developing Uranium for the bomb. After the war she remained at Columbia until her retirement. In 1957, she was excluded from a Nobel Prize for Physics that she worked on. The other people working with her did however. They were both men.

Aside from that she was actually recognized for other accomplishments. She was the first Pupin Professor of Physics, first woman elected to the American Physical Society, and first woman to get the Cyrus B. Comstock award. She retired in 1981 but still encouraged women to pursue mathematics and science until she died in 1997.

Maria Telkes, 1900 – 1985

The “Sun Queen,” was born in Budapest, Hungary. She initially became intrigued by solar energy when she noticed sunlight illuminating lightbulbs. She received a bachelor’s and Ph. D in physical chemistry from the University of Budapest. A few years later she moved to the United States. She started working for the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in life-transformative energy. Her career shifted towards exploring solar energy at MIT. This is where she worked her most famous experiment. She and her colleagues built a solar powered house in Dover, Massachusetts. That house is still up and running.

A few years later she was hired by the Ford Foundation to build a solar oven that’s simple enough a child use. During her career, she found countless uses for solar energy and designed many, many products that utilized solar power.

Charlotte Riefenstahl, 1899 – 1993

There are many unsung heroes in the realm of science. Charlotte didn’t have a glamorous career in physics but she was a working consistently throughout it. She was born in Bielefeld, Germany. Charlotte was highly educated in mathematics and the natural sciences. She received her Ph. D. in 1927. At this time she was friends with Robert Oppenheimer and Fritz Houtermans. Both of them were courting her and she chose Fritz over Oppenheimer. They married and had 2 kids. Fritz was an active Communist in 1930s Germany. After Hitler took power she suggested they flee Germany. They left for England and stayed until Fritz got a job in the Soviet Union. They returned to Germany after a few years but divorced in 1943. 10 years later after another divorce Fritz remarried Charlotte. They divorced again after a few months. She got a job as a teacher and research assistant at Vassar College where she stayed for many years. She assisted her 2-time husband Fritz in his research and translated his work. She had a successful career in physics.

Maria Barbosa, Present

Marcia Barbosa is one of top physicists in the world and blazing the trail for women in science for the future. She received her doctoral degree at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in 1988, and followed that with a postdoctoral degree at the University of Maryland. Following this she worked in the physics department at the Universidade and now the director of the Physics Institute for the Universidade. She serves on many science and physics committee including the initial member of International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP). She was awarded the American Physical Society Nicholson Medal in 2010. Also received the L’Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Physics Award in 2013. She heavily works in gender equality and promoting women in the science world.

She is a specialist in hydrodynamics. Marcia focuses on water molecules and how it can be applied to treating diseases, predicting earthquakes, proteins molecules fold, generating clean energy, and many more areas. Marcia continues to prove that women not only have a place in science but deserve a place in science. This is only the beginning for Ms. Marcia Barbosa.

Louise Bourgeouis Boursier, 1563 – 1636

Much like Agnodice before her she was a practicing physician that specialized in childbirth. She took childbirth from rudimentary practice into a fully developed science. Most of what we know about her life is from her defense in a court case in 1627. She was born into a middle-class family. She married an army barber surgeon, Martin Boursier. During their marriage they had 3 children. Henry IV, the French King at the time, attacked Paris. Martin was away with the army forcing Louise and the kids to flee Paris. She had to sell off nearly everything the family owned to make ends meet for a while. She learned midwifery from Martin and applied a methodical approach to it. Some sources cite she attended a school for midwifery but regardless she learned it from someone.

She was officially licensed to practice in 1598. After moving to Saint-Andre-des-Arts Louise established a practice and quickly built a wonderful reputation. In 1600, Henry IV was seeking a quality mid-wife. Louise was highly recommended and selected. She delivered 6 out of 6 of the king’s children. In 1609, she released her first book of several books on midwifery, Diverse Observations on Sterility; Loss of the Ovum after Fecundation, Fecundity and Childbirth; Diseases of Women and of Newborn Infants. It utilized common sense and basic knowledge that we don’t think twice about now. She was sued in 1627 after the death of a noblewoman in childbirth. She was blamed by numerous doctors for this. Louise didn’t take any of this and fought back. Her career continued and pushed the boundaries of midwifery.

Marie-Anne Pierette Paulze, 1758 – 1836

Her accomplishments are debatable given she was primarily just an assistant but she helped her husband Antoine Laurent Lavoisier. Her father was a lawyer whom when was of age to marry, went on the hunt for her future husband. Initially it was the ripe 50 yr old Count d’Amerval but her father declined. A young colleague of her father named Antoine Lavoisier, requested her hand in marriage and allowed it. She assisted her husband throughout his career and life but he was executed during the first French Revolution. She married another scientist in 1805, Benjamin Thompson. They divorced four years later. Allegedly she poured boiling water on his garden at some point. Not much is known about her after this.

Her exact role regarding her first husband is not clear. She was taught by him and learned the various sciences he employed. However, it is not explicitly recorded that she did actual the science. Regardless she has a place in the history of science that more people should know about.

Emilie Du Chatelet, 1706 – 1749

In a world where it was frowned upon for women to be educated and rise above, Emilie Du Chatelet was a broke through the atmosphere and kept going. Her father was a Baron and they lived a lavish high-class life. Young Emilie loved it. Like most children of royalty she was educated in a variety of subjects. Her passion was always mathematics even though she exceled in languages. She married Marquis Florent-Claude de Chalelet-Lomont in 1725 at the age of 16. They had 3 children. Their third child died after a year. During all this she pursued mathematics, science, and philosophy professionally. She had the best tutors teach her plus an innate interest and love for the subjects thus she was a natural.

In 1733 she took Voltaire as a lover. He first met her when she was still a child. They remained close friends and lovers until her death. In 1742, she had a 4^th baby from her other lover Jean-Francois de Saint-Lambert. She died in childbirth having Jean-Francois’s second baby. Her most famous work the Fiundations of Physics was completed in 1740. It was briefly in circulation but she did a major overhaul making it as perfect as she could. It covered God, metaphysics, and a variety of other subjects. It helped bring introduce Newtonian thought into the French Intelligentsia. Du Chatelet in short time became one of the top scientists of her era.

Ellen Hutchins, 1785 – 1815

Even though her career was very short she left a big impact in botany and bryology. Ms. Hutchins spent her school years with family friend Dr. Whitley Stokes. This is where her love of botany was fostered and grew into a career. She was introduced to other prominent botanists of the era who encouraged her further to pursue being a full-fledged scientist. Ellen specialized in cryptogams, plants that are non-flowering. She was an expert in mosses, seaweed, lichens, and ferns. Many new and rare species were discovered by her but she did not want her name attached to the discovery. So she didn’t get much credit for her years of work. She discovered half of the species identified in British Jungermanniae (1816). Some of her discoveries are featured in Smith and Sowerby’s English Botany volumes. Through her brother she is distantly related to Florence Nightingale. Due to illness she rarely left Bantry Bay. It’s believed she died of tuberculosis a few weeks before her 30^th birthday.

Jane Marcet, 1769 – 1858

Most of the people in this series were/are scientists or assisted scientists. Jane Marcet is an outlier. She wrote introductory books on science and politics. She was raised in wealthy Swiss family, the Haldimands that resided in England. Due to this Jane was able to receive an equal education to her brother. She was lucky enough to also learn mathematics and science. Jane married Alexander Marcet, a Swiss doctor. They attended lectures of Humphry Davy which inspired her to write Conversations on Chemistry. Her name didn’t appear on it until 1832. In this she simplified complex scientific principles. It was aimed at girls initially but children of all ages read it. It went through numerous editions and printings through the years. It was first used as a textbook in 1865 by the Boston Girls’ High and Normal School. Michael Faraday cited this as the reason he wanted to be a scientist. The book was followed by others on other subjects. She lived out her years with her daughter in London.