The Unfamed Sisters of Science

When you think about women in science, your mind will often drift to names like Marie Curie and Ada Lovelace.

Whilst these women do indeed deserve the praise they get in their field, my own school curriculum was somewhat lacking in inspirational female scientists.

When you look back, the achievements of many women in Science were not recognised at the time due to restrictions of their gender from societal norms or restrictions based on their ethnicity. This article compiles a list of 10 female scientists from different points of history that made huge strides in their field and that you may not have heard of.

Hilde Mangold

Hilde Mangold was a German embryologist who is known for her 1932 dissertation, which was the foundation of her adviser, Hans Spemann's 1935 Nobel prize for the discovery of the "embryonic organiser." This was one of the few doctoral thesis in biology to result in the awarding of this prize. Many parts of her work remain fundamental in ongoing research in the field. Hilde was namechecked in her adviser's Nobel lecture and died in a gas-heater explosion in her Berlin home, never living to see the publication of her thesis results.

Chien-Shiung Wu

Chien-Shiung Wu was a Chinese-American physicist who made significant contribution of the field of nuclear physics. Wu worked on the Manhattan project and is best known for conducting the "Wu Experiment," which contradicted the hypothetical law of conservation of parity. Her discoveries from these experiments led to her colleagues, Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang, winning the 1957 Nobel prize in physics and she was later awarded the Wolf prize in physics two decades later. She was outspoken and protested gender discrimination at a symposium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "I wonder," she asked "whether the tiny atoms and nuclei, or the mathematical symbols, or the DNA molecules have any preference for either masculine or feminine treatment."

Stephanie Kwolek

Stephanie Kwolek is known as the inventor of the bulletproof material, Kevlar. In 1946, she began working for US chemical company DuPont to earn money for medical school, but enjoyed her work there so much that she never left, her career with them spanning 40 years. Her discovery awarded her the company's Lavoisier Medal, making her the first female employee to receive the honour. She was also the fourth woman to be added to the National Inventors Hall of Fame. After many more awards and her retirement, she became involved in trying to introduce young girls to science and tutored in Chemistry. Some of her teaching experiments, like the Nylon Rope Trick, are still used today.

Caroline Herschel

Caroline Herschel was a German astronomer who is most famous for discovering several comets, one of which bears her namesake. Throughout her career, she worked alongside her brother, William Herschel. She was the first woman to be awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society and be named an honorary member of this and the Royal Irish Academy. On her 96th birthday, the King of Prussia presented her with the Gold Medal for Science.

Struck with typhus at the age of ten, she is said to have never grown past four feet and three inches and to have suffered visual loss in her left eye. Since it was presumed that she would never marry, her mother thought it best to train her as a household servant. Following her father's death, she went to live with her brothers in Bath, becoming principle singer in oratorio concerts. Her transition to astronomy came when assisting her brother, William. She made it clear, as her skills unfolded, that she wanted to earn an independent wage and became the first woman to receive wages for services to science.

Hertha Ayrton

Hertha Ayrton was a British engineer, mathematician, physicist and inventor, awarded the Hughes Medal by the Royal Society for her electric arcs.

She studied Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, but was not eligible for a degree due to her gender. During this time, she constructed a patent for a sphygmomanometer (blood pressure meter), one of her 26 inventions.

She went on to become the first woman to join the British Institute of Electrical Engineers, support her husband, William Ayrton in his work, and was the first woman to read a paper for the Royal Society (though at this point fellowship was denied because she was married).

Ayrton helped found the International Federation of University Women in 1919.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Jocelyn Bell Burnell is a Northern Irish astrophysicist who discovered the first radio pulsars as a postgraduate student, which her thesis supervisor Antony Hewish shared the Nobel prize in Physics with astronomer, Martin Ryle. On the paper announcing this discovery, Bell's name was listed second to Hewish and she was never made a co-recipient of the prize. This was highly criticised by many prominent astronomers.

Annie Easley

Annie Easley was an African-American computer scientist, mathematician, and rocket scientist. She was a leading member of the team that developed software for the Centaur rocket stage and one of the first African-Americans to work as a computer scientist for NASA.

Segregation and racial inequality made many factors of her education and career prospects far more challenging and at the time of being employed at NASA, she was one of four African-Americans out of around 2500 employees.

She is quoted to have said "When people have their biases and prejudices, yes, I am aware. My head is not in the sand. But my thing is, if I can't work with you, I will work around you. I was not about to be so discouraged that I'd walk away. That may be a solution for some people, but it's not mine."

Kalpana Chawla

Kalpana Chawla was an American astronaut and the first woman of Indian origin in space. She flew on the space shuttle, Columbia, as a mission specialist and robotic arm operator.

She first got a bachelor's degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh before moving to America and obtaining a Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington. She also got a second Masters and PHD in Aerospace Engineering. She held certified licences for many forms of airplanes and gliders. Whilst travelling in space, she is quoted to have said of the weightlessness, "You are just your intelligence."

She was one of the seven crew members to die when their ship disintegrated during re-entry. Chawla is a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and has been recognised in the naming of various buildings, streets, and popular culture references.

Florence Bascom

Florence Bascom was the second woman ever to earn her PHD in Geology in the US and the first woman to receive a PHD from John Hopkins University. She also went on to be the first woman hired by the United States geological survey. She was known for her finding in this field and paving the way for a future generation of female geologists.

Her parents were both women's rights supporters and her mother was involved in the suffrage movements.

Her first degree was in Arts and Letters and her interest in science only happened when she was rejected from another school. During this time, women were limited and often were either not allowed to be present in classrooms with men in them or forced to sit behind a screen to "avoid distracting them."

Lise Meitner

Lise Meitner was an Austrian-Swedish physicist who worked on radioactivity and nuclear physics. She is most well known for the discovery of Nuclear Fission. She was the first woman to become a full professor of physics in Germany, but lost her positions because of anti-Jewish laws at the time, fleeing to Sweden where she lived for many years, eventually becoming a citizen.

Though she received many awards in later life, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the work on Nuclear Fission was awarded to her collaborator, Otto Hahn. Many found this to be unjust.