Math
The first woman to win a Fields Medal and was known for her work on complex geometry and dynamical systems.
Who is Maryam Mirzakhani?
The leading mRNA researcher who developed one of the first Covid vaccines in 2020.
Who is Katalin Karikó?
Developed the first compiler, which translated high-level computer programming languages into machine-readable code. (Hint: COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language)
Who is Grace Hopper?
Submitted a patent for radio frequency hopping that built the foundation for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS. (Hint: she was also an actress!)
Who is Hedy Lamarr?
The first female video game designer and is considered one of the pioneering members of the industry.
Who is Carol Shaw?
After graduating top of her class at MIT, this person, pioneered network routing algorithms now used by every network in the world.
Who is Radia Perlman?
The first African-American woman astronaut to travel into space aboard the Endeavor Space Shuttle.
Who is Mae Jamison?
An American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and media proprietor. She is best known for her talk show which broadcast from Chicago, and ran in national syndication for 25 years.
Who is Oprah Winfrey?
Developed theories about natural language processing that are used in search engines today.
Who is Karen Sparck Jones?
Created Smalltalk-80, an object-oriented programming language that influenced other computer languages, including C++, Java, and Python.
Who is Adele Goldberg?
She worked alongside mathematician John Littlewood to study solutions to the famed Van der Pol oscillator. Their research formed the basis of what is today known as chaos theory, which is integral to the study of dynamical systems in mathematics.
Won the Nobel Prize in physics, followed by winning the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1911. Was famous for discovering the elements polonium and radium alongside her husband.
Who is Marie Curie?
She is the founder of Spanx, an American intimate apparel company with pants and leggings, founded in Atlanta, Georgia.
Who is Sara Blakely?
Early team member that developed the software used in the Centaur rocket stage, which was later applied to hybrid vehicles.
Who is Annie Easley?
Known for calculating the Apollo 11 mission trajectories that sent astronauts to the moon. Nickname: Human Computer.
Who is Katherine Johnson?
After studying mathematics at Berkley and Princeton, STEM pioneer, this person, began her career in computer programming. She also became the first woman in the United States to earn a doctoral degree from a computer science department.
Who is Barbara Liskov?
Known for her groundbreaking contributions to the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA in the early 1950s. (Hint: X ray Crystallography)
Who is Rosalind Franklin?
A Chinese media proprietor, journalist, and talk show host. She is the co-founder and chairperson of the Sun Media Group and the Sun Culture Foundation.
Who is Yang Lan?
She worked at Google upon graduating university, where she quickly worked through the ranks and ended up establishing the search homepage that we still use to this day.
Who is Marissa Mayer?
an American engineer and a NASA astronaut. She flew to space onboard three Space Shuttle missions, and is the second African American woman to go into space, after Mae Jemison.
Who is Stephanie Wilson?
an American mathematician and aerospace engineer at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which in 1958 was succeeded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. She worked at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, for most of her career.
Who is Mary Jackson?
She was in charge of nursing during the Crimean War and spearheaded numerous reforms in both nursing education and hygiene.
Who is Florence Nightingale?
An American business executive who was the chief executive officer of YouTube from 2014 to 2023.
Who is Susan Wojcicki?
She was director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which developed on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo program.
Who is Margaret Hamilton?
An English engineer and inventor, awarded a patent for a screw propeller called the Lowe-Vansittart propeller. She was self-trained and she is considered to be one of the first female engineers, with her concentration being on ship propulsion.
Who is Henrietta Vansittart?