Today’s Illustrated Women in History is a written submission by James Purvis. Caroline Herschel 1750 – 1848 Caroline Herschel was an astronomer and singer, and was the first woman to be paid for her contribution to science. At the age of 22 Herschel, who had received training in music against the wishes of her mother, …
Dorothy Hodgkin OM FRS was a British biochemist who developed protein crystallography. She won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964 for her determination of the structure of penicillin and vitamin B12. She is one of the pioneering scientists who worked in the field of X-ray crystallography studies of biomolecules. Hodgkin was born in 1910 in …
Stephanie Kwolek was an American chemist who is best known for inventing the first of a family of synthetic fibers of exceptional strength and stiffness: poly-paraphenylene terephthalamide—better known as Kevlar. Kwolek was born in 1923 in New Kensington, Pennsylvania. Her father, John Kwolek, was a naturalist and Kwolek spent hours exploring the woods and fields …
Dr Helen Sharman OBE FRSC, is a British chemist who became the first Briton in space and the first woman to visit the Mir space station in 1991. Sharman was born in 1963 in Grenoside, Sheffield. Her father, a physicist, inspired an early interest in science and made her realise how relevant science is to …
Margaret Hamilton is a computer scientist, systems engineer, and business owner. She is best known for her role as an Award-winning American NASA scientist and mathematician who, as the Director of the Software Engineering Division at Charles Stark Draper Laboratory (CSDL), worked to develop the Apollo program. Hamilton was born in 1936 in Paoli, Indiana. …
Beatrix Potter was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist. She wrote and illustrated more than 20 children’s books featuring the animals Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle-Duck, and Benjamin Bunny. Potter was born in 1866 in London. Her father Rupert had trained as a lawyer but devoted himself to art and photography, her mother Helen …
Hedy Lamarr was an inventor, pin-up and film actress. She co-developed an early technique for spread spectrum communications which are key in many wireless communications used today, including Wi-Fi. Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in 1914 in Vienna, Austria. In the late 1920’s, her acting talents were discovered by producer Max Reinhardt. He …
Florence B. Seibert was an American biochemist best known for her contributions to the tuberculin test and to safety measures for intravenous drug therapy. She is a member of the U.S. National Women’s Hall of Fame. Seibert was born in Easton, Pennsylvania. As the age of three she contracted polio which left her with a …
Tu Youyou is a Chinese medical scientist, pharmaceutical chemist, and educator. She has received the 2011 Lasker Award in clinical medicine and the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. She is the first Chinese woman in history to receive the Nobel Prize in the sciences. Tu was born in Ningbo, Zhejiang, China in 1930. …
Rosalind Franklin was an English chemist and X-ray crystallographer who made contributions to the understanding of the fine molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite. Franklin attended one of the few girls’ schools in London that taught physics and chemistry, she excelled at science and at 15 decided she would become a scientist. …