Edith Quimby - pioneering medical physicist

In the early decades of the 20th century scientists around the world were busy looking for ways to use radioactive materials. Following its groundbreaking discovery by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898, and then the isolation of radium as a pure metal by Marie Curie and André-Louis Debierne in 1910, radium seemed to hold the most promise. The two most common applications were in luminescent paint applied to clock hands so they glowed in the dark, and in medicine where it was used to treat cancer.

We know from learning the story of the Radium Girls, using radium as a component of paint would have deadly repercussions. By the mid-1920s, countless young woman had died after working painting on the dials of watches and clocks. They'd been instructed to lick their paintbrushes to create a finer point, and thus they ingested radium in unknown quantities before becoming sick.

The field of nuclear medicine was somewhat more promising. There are some horrific stories of radium being used in large quantities to treat cancers where doctors sewed capsules of radium directly to the tumor, as in the case of Henrietta Lacks and the treatment she received for cervical cancer. But it seemed that smaller doses had some positive effects. The question was how much was the right amount?

That answer came from medical physicist Edith Quimby. In 1919, after having earned a bachelor's in mathematics and physics, and completed a master's in physics, Edith set out to find a research position. She accepted a position as assistant physicist at the Memorial Hospital in New York City, working with Gioacchino Failla who had established the first laboratory devoted to researching the medical uses of radiation.

It was her task to determine the precise dosage needed for each patient that would have the fewest side effects. At the time, radiotherapy (where radium-containing needles are directly applied to tumors) was in its infancy. There was no consistency in regards to placement or dosage, and no way to determine if the tumor was receiving the correct exposure needed for proper treatment. It was her research that led to a set of guidelines for the most effective arrangement of needles in 1932. Known as the "Quimby rules" they were the standard used until computer-aided placement techniques became available in the 1980s.

She moved to Columbia University in 1942 where she taught radiology and medical physics while conducting research using the new kinds of radioactive materials being created by accelerators and nuclear reactors. She was named as a full professor there in 1954. It was here where she taught future Nobel Laureate Rosalyn Yalow.

Her research also included quantifying the amounts of different kinds of radiation needed to have the same effect, which laid the foundation for future studies to understand how cumulative exposures of each would affect a body. This calculation could not only help inform the doctors about a patient's long-term side effects, but would also help radiation technicians protect their own health by reducing risks of repeated exposure. She created a "film badge" system where X-ray film strips were covered with black paper and distributed to laboratory personnel to measure incidental exposure.

Also in 1954, she became the first woman and first physicist to be named president of the American Radium Society. In her acceptance speech, she outlined the need for an organization of medical physicists in the US. And thus, because of her call to action, the American Association of Physicists in Medicine was founded in 1958.

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For more information:

Her New York Times obituary: "Edith Quimby Dies; Radiation Expert"

Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons: "Edith Quimby: First Woman Medical Physicist"

Photo source: Whitman College Archives

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Eugenie Clark and the power of passion

I wonder how many scientific discoveries have been made by people who were just curious about a subject and wanted to know more about it? How does it work? Why is it like that? What else is there like this?

Honestly, I have a special place in my heart for stories about people who first realized their passion as a child and spent their life pursuing it. And especially for those who had to overcome some kind of naysayers, ignoring anyone who said they couldn't or who questioned the value of their work. Imagine the determination needed to just keep going anyway, just "doing your thing" simply because it's just so fascinating. And to then have it pay off in such a huge way with some unexpected discovery that changes everything.

When Eugenie Clark (May 4, 1922 – February 25, 2015) was a kid she visited the New York Aquarium and was immediately entranced. So much so that she returned nearly every weekend to stare at the fish and try to learn as much about them as she could. She wrote school papers about what she learned and followed the doings of other marine scientists of the era. Her hero was the explorer/naturalist William Beebe, famous for his deep dives in a kind of personal submarine off the coast of Bermuda.

Despite her evident passion for the subject and her determination to learn as much as possible, when she told her parents she intended to become a marine biologist, they tried to discourage her. "I told my family, I said, 'I'd like to go down and be like William Beebe,' and they said, 'Well, maybe you can take up typing and get to be the secretary of William Beebe or somebody like him.'"

She did it anyway.

She studied zoology at Hunter College and spent her summers working at the University of Michigan Biological Station. She went on to graduate studies from New York University, and prestigious research opportunities at places like Woods Hole Marine Laboratory and the American Museum of Natural History. She traveled to Micronesia for an Office of Naval Research project to study fish populations. And she earned a Fulbright Scholarship to study fish in the Red Sea, which she wrote about in her wildly successful book Lady with a Spear, which brought her to the attention of the wealthy Vanderbilts who built Cape Haze Marine Laboratory along the coast of Florida for her.

It was at Cape Haze where she began to study sharks more seriously. She worked with a local fisherman to catch sharks for research. Through her research many of the dangerous myths about sharks have been dispelled, replaced by newfound respect for their intelligence and understanding of their behavior, which she wrote about in her second book, The Lady and the Sharks.

When she left Cape Haze in the mid-60s, it was to teach college zoology and marine biology classes for another four decades, only semi-retiring at the age of 77. She continued diving until the year before her death, and was still working on research projects right up to the end.

"Not many appreciate the ultimate power and potential usefulness of basic knowledge accumulated by obscure, unseen investigators who, in a lifetime of intensive study, may never see any practical use for their findings but who go on seeking answers to the unknown without thought of financial or practical gain."

I'll say she knew more than most the power and potential usefulness of following one's passion, seeking answers to the unknown. Over the course of her long career, she traveled the world, taught thousands of students, conducted over 70 dives using submersible equipment, led more than 200 field research expeditions, and helped create the very first IMAX film.

And she did it all because she was curious about fish and wanted to know more.

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Louise Pearce - medical trailblazer

A medical pathologist, Louise Pearce (March 5, 1885 – August 10, 1959) was the first female scientists hired at the Rockefeller Institute, where she studied treatments for African sleeping sickness. She traveled to the Belgian Congo in 1920 to carry out trials of the drug she helped develop, which had an impressive 80% cure rate. Her research involved studying disease in rabbit colonies over several generations, where she was able to isolate diseases to study their transmission and immunology.

Education was important in her family. When she was still quite small, her family moved from Winchester, Massachusetts, to southern California. When it was time for her to attend school, she studied at the Girls Collegiate School in Los Angeles, where she took classes in a wide range of academic studies. In 1907, she graduated from Stanford University with a degree in physiology and histology, the study of microscopic anatomy of plant cells and tissues. She continued her studies at Boston University and earned her MD from Johns Hopkins, where she graduated third in her class.

Her attention to detail and dedication to her research made her an ideal pathologist, and in 1913 she was hired as a researcher at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. She was the first woman hired there, and she remained there for her entire career. It was here where she began her important research on treatment for sleeping sickness, an epidemic that was devastating entire regions across Africa.

After performing numerous animal trials her team found that the drug tryparsamide was quite successful in treating the disease in rabbits, the closest animal model to the human course of the disease. They published their results in 1919. In 1920, she traveled to the Belgian Congo, at considerable risk to herself, in order to carry out human trials to determine the drug's safety, effectiveness, and appropriate dosage. At the time, the Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was a colony of Belgium, and was controlled through state violence against the native populations who were often conscripted into working to help deplete the natural resources. At the time of her arrival, post-World War I, efforts were underway to improve the country's economic infrastructure to support private companies. The horrific brutality of the Belgium regime of Leopold II is well documented now, but it is unclear if Louise Pearce was aware of it before she agreed to travel, or what her motivations were aside from a humanitarian need.

Working closely with a local hospital and laboratory, her research met with immediate success. For a disease that was nearly always fatal, she was able to cure more than 80% of infected patients, even those with late-stage illness. For her life-saving research, she was awarded the Order of the Crown of Belgium, and elected as a member of the Belgian Society of Tropical Medicine.

After returning to the states, she then turned her attention to the treatment of syphilis, using the same drug. Because the two diseased operated in similar ways in humans, she suspected it would be an effective treatment for syphilis of the brain and spinal cord, as well as the chronic form of the disease. It was, and tryparsamide became the standard treatment until the discovery of penicillin in 1950.

Much of her research was performed on rabbits, and it was during this time that she discovered a malignant epithelial tumor that was then transferred to several other rabbits, each showing a variation in malignancy. She began to study these differences in an effort to understand its transmission, growth and remission. This tumor, referred to as the Brown-Pearce tumor, became the standard test material in cancer research. And she spent much of the rest of her career studying the relationship between the basic health of an organism and its probability of developing disease. Her research focused on rabbit subjects, and during her many trials she was able to isolate the rabbit pox virus and study its transmission and immune reactions.

But she did not spend all of her time working in the lab. She was a member of Heterodoxy, a feminist debating group in Greenwich Village. She taught at several prestigious institutions, including Peiping Union Medical College in China, and sat on the board more than 15 medical associations, including the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, where she also served as president from 1946 to 1952.

She spend the latter part of her life living on a farm in New Jersey with two other women, author I. A. R. Wylie, and public health physician Sara Josephine Baker, who is most well known for having tracked down Mary Mallon (aka "Typhoid Mary), the first person identified as an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever. There is some speculation that they were probably romantically involved, perhaps in a polyamorous relationship, but there is no definitive documentation. Wylie and Pearce are buried next to each other at the farm's little cemetery, though, which supports the idea that they were more than simply platonic friends.

Louise Pearce lived her life on her own terms. She was fortunate to have been able to pursue her education at a time when college education for young women was still quite rare. She was both a groundbreaking medical researcher and trailblazer for other women in medical science, dedicated to improving the lives of her patients and opening new doors to women in all fields.

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For more information:

The Rockefeller University: "Louise Pearce – An Extraordinary Woman of Medicine"

AAUW: "AAUW Member Saves Lives: Dr. Louise Pearce"

Al Jazeera: "Unsung Hero: Louise Pearce"

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Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell - science star

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell (born 15 July 1943) is an astrophysicist with a long and prolific career, who is best known for her discovery of the first radio pulsars in 1967. She served as president of the Royal Astronomical Society from 2002 to 2004, and president of the Institute of Physics from 2008 to 2010. She was the first woman to serve as president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and in 2007 she promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Growing up, her father was an architect who worked on the Armagh Planetarium. When she was still quite young, she discovered his astronomy books, which she enjoyed immensely. As a student at the Preparatory Department of Lurgan College, she had to fight to be allowed to take classes in science. The school's policy was changed after several parents complained. Unfortunately, when she was ready to move to secondary school she failed the eleven-plus exam, and was instead sent to study at a Quaker boarding school.

This was a good move, giving her the preparation she needed for her college studies. Still interested in astronomy, she attended the University of Glasgow, where she earned a BS in physics in 1965, and then went on to the University of Cambridge, where she studied quasars with Antony Hewish. It was here where she helped construct the radio telescope that she used to discover the first radio pulsar.

In July 1967, she was recording signals received by the radio telescope when she noticed a little bit of "scruff" in the data. They were looking for more quasars, analyzing data from scanning the sky once every four days. All the data was printed on a kind of chart-reporter -- a device with three pens that tracks input, similar to a seismograph, only in this case tracking radio waves rather than seismic waves. After seeing this "scruff" on her reports enough, she could tell it wasn't from human-made radio transmissions, and it wasn't from a quasar. But what was it?

She set up some new recordings to try to figure out its source, but it wasn't until November that she was able to get a clear chart showing a series of pulses, exactly 11/3 seconds apart. When she showed her data to Antony Hewish, he was skeptical, but agreed to visit the observatory with her to check it out. When it was clear that it wasn't something coming from the earth (not radar bouncing off the moon, satellites in orbit, or other bits of human-made interference) they started to wonder if it was some kind of transmission from an alien world, hence her readings were dubbed "Little Green Man 1" or LGM-1..

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My eureka moment was in the dead of night, the early hours of the morning, on a cold, cold night, and my feet were so cold,
they were aching. But when the result poured out of the charts,
you just forget all that. You realize instantly how significant
this is—what it is you’ve really landed on—and it’s great!

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It wasn't until she was analyzing data from a completely different part of the sky and found a similar bit of "scruff" at the same frequency that she began to suspect it was something else entirely. It was unlikely that the first reading was from aliens, and even more unlikely that there was a second set of aliens transmitting at the same frequency from somewhere else in the universe.

More analysis, and more "scruff," and now there were four different sources. By now they had a term, "pulsar" -- so named because it was a rapidly rotating neutron star that emitted regular pulses -- which they used in a paper in January of 1968. When the news about LGM-1 hit the press, she and the rest of the team were inundated with interview requests from all sides. Sadly, but not surprisingly, the majority of the questions she fielded were along the lines of "How many boyfriends do you have," and whether she was "taller than or not quite as tall as Princess Margaret?" When the excitement died down, she handed off the research to other students while she wrapped up her thesis. She graduated with her PhD in 1969, got married and moved from radio astronomy to gamma-ray astronomy, glad to be able to do some "reliable and solid, undramatic science."

And she has. She worked at the University of Southampton from 1968 to 1973, the University College London from 1974 to 1982, and the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh from 1982 to 1991. In addition to her duties on campus, she also worked as a tutor, consultant, examiner, and lecturer for the Open University -- a public distance learning and research university -- from 1973 to 1987, and served as Professor of Physics from 1991 to 2001. She was a visiting professor in Princeton University and Dean of Science in the University of Bath from 2001 to 2004, and is currently Visiting Professor of Astrophysics in the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Mansfield College. In February 2018 she was appointed Chancellor of the University of Dundee.

She served as president of the Royal Astronomical Society from 2002 to 2004, and president of the Institute of Physics from 2008 to 2010. When asked about not being included in the Nobel Prize, she laughs it off good-naturedly, saying, "You can actually do extremely well out of not getting a Nobel prize, and I have had so many prizes, and so many honours, and so many awards, that actually, I think I've had far more fun than if I'd got a Nobel Prize - which is a bit flash in the pan: You get it, you have a fun week, and it's all over, and nobody gives you anything else after that, cos they feel they can't match it."

She's done alright. She's received a dozen or so awards, was the first woman to serve as president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and in 1999 she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and then promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2007.

For more reading:

You can read her article about the discovery of pulsars, "Little Green Men, White Dwarfs or Pulsars?"

The Herald article "Face to Face: science star who went under the radar of Nobel Prize judges"

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Katharine "Kay" Way - nuclear scientist

Katharine "Kay" Way (February 20, 1902 – December 9, 1995) was one of the leading female physicists on the Manhattan Project, she did much of her work at the Metallurgical Laboratory (Met Lab) in Chicago analyzing neutron flux data as they attempted to create a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. She is best known for the development of the Way-Wigner formula which calculates the beta decay rates of fission products. As a physicist, she spent much of her career working on the Nuclear Data Project, created to standardize the organization and sharing of nuclear data, and which grew out of her work in Chicago where she was collecting and analyzing enormous amounts of data. It was a suggestion she made that sparked the creation of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee in 1943.

Her childhood was interrupted by the death of her mother when she was 12. When her father remarried, her new step-mother was an otolaryngologist (an ear, nose and throat doctor), and you can imagine how this career woman influenced Kay's ideas of the possibilities for her own future. In 1920 she began studying at Vassar College, but she had to leave after two years because of illness (likely tuberculosis). After a lengthy recovery, she enrolled in Barnard College, but had to go slowly. She eventually began taking classes at Columbia University where she met Edward Kasner, a renown mathematician. Her fascination with mathematics led her to the study of physics, and she eventually graduated with her bachelor's in 1932.

She earned her Ph.D. in physics at the University of North Carolina, where she focused her attention on nuclear physics -- the field she would dedicate her life to. Thinking she'd find a career as a professor teaching classes and working in the lab, she accepted a position at the University of Tennessee in 1939. But once it became clear the US was headed to war, she looked for ways to become involved. When she heard about the work being done with the Manhattan Project out of Chicago (the same project Leona Woods was involved in), she called her old UNC professor and convinced him to hire her. She performed critical analysis of the deluge of data coming in from early nuclear reactor designs, to help determine whether it would be possible to create a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. Her calculations were used to build Chicago Pile-1, the first nuclear reactor ever built. It set the foundation for the work of other scientists at Los Alamos building the first atomic bomb.

When many of the nuclear scientists involved in the Met Lab project realized the implications of their work being used to build atomic weapons, they took an important, but ultimately unsuccessful stand by signing the Szilard Petition of July 17, 1945, which was sent to President Truman and the Secretary of War, calling for them to reconsider the use of the atomic bomb against the people of Japan. As a response to the bombings, in 1946 many of these same scientists wrote important essays highlighting their concerns about nuclear weapons, which were gathered in a book she co-edited, One World or None: A Report to the Public on the Full Meaning of the Atomic Bomb.

Her activism wasn't limited to anti-nuclear writings. She was a strong advocate for bringing the work of these important scientists to universities in the Southeast, likely influenced by her time teaching at the University of Tennessee before the war. In 1943, as a direct response to a comment she made about ensuring students and faculty at these institutions had access to the researching being done at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Because of her suggestion, the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies (ORINS), now known as Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), opened up research opportunities and has been a major influence on the development of science and technology in the Southeast.

After the war, she took a position at the National Bureau of Standards (where Chien-Shiung Wu and Charlotte Moore Sitterly, two other important women in physics were also working in their respective fields). By 1953, there was a massive amount of data about nuclear physics being recorded, but it was nearly impossible for scientists to tap into what they needed. During her years of analyzing large amounts of raw information while working in Chicago, she had come up with methods for collating and sorting incoming data in order to find what she needed. From this, she created the Nuclear Data Project (NDP) in 1953 as a way to organize and share this information in sheets and tables making it easy to cross reference, setting the standard for how data is gathered, evaluated and presented in the field of nuclear physics.

For more reading:

"Historically Speaking: Katherine Way and her influence on Oak Ridge"

Atomic Heritage Foundation biography: "Katharine Way"

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Mary Leakey - ground-breaking paleoathropologist

"Basically, I have been compelled by curiosity." Mary Leakey

Mary Leakey (February 6, 1913 – December 9, 1996) was a prominent paleoanthropologist, whose discoveries of important skulls and other fossils, including stone tools and even footprints, of ancient human predecessors and other primates, brought international attention to the scientific search for humanity's origins.

Her interest in ancient peoples was first sparked on a family vacation to France in 1925. French archaeologist Elie Peyrony was excavating a cave there, and 12-year-old Mary was invited visit the site. She was allowed to take home some artifacts that had been discovered there -- scrapers, blades, and points -- and she used them to create her first system of classification.

"For me it was the sheer instinctive joy of collecting, or indeed one could say treasure hunting: it seemed that this whole area abounded in objects of beauty and great intrinsic interest that could be taken from the ground."

Her father took her to visit other caves, where they could view some of the prehistoric cave paintings, further inspiring her curiosity in ancient peoples and their artwork. Tragically, her father died while she was still quite young, but she found other mentors who encouraged her to learn more about anthropology and archeology.

Her interests in art and archeology continued to grow, but her predisposition to learning on her own -- even when it meant blowing up a school science lab, twice, -- as well as her general disinterest in studying for exams meant her school performance precluded attending college in the traditional manner. Instead, she attended lectures in archeology, prehistory and geology as a non-student, and even worked at the London Museum, where she was invited to participate in summer excavations throughout Europe.

Louis Leakey who hired her to illustrate his book Adam's Ancestors, and the two hit it off both professionally and romantically. They traveled the world working on research projects as long as their donated funds would allow. Eventually, they attracted the attention of the National Geographic Society, who gave them enough money to focus their attention on research full time.

Louis and Mary published most of their findings as a team, although professionally he received credit for many of her contributions. After his death in 1972, Mary continued to work solo, earning a reputation as a preeminent paleoanthropologist in her own stead.

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Michelle Simmons - 2018 Australian of the Year

"I found that the more difficult the challenges I took on, the more rewarding it was and I thought 'wow this is a phenomenal world to be in.'" Michelle Simmons, 2018 Australian of the Year

Last month physicist Michelle Simmons was named the 2018 Australian of the Year for her ground-breaking work in Quantum mechanics -- a booming field for scientific research in Australia at the moment. Determined to specialize in atomic electronics and quantum computing -- basically, using the properties of atoms to create extremely small devices that can crunch enormous amounts of data much faster than traditional computers -- she moved from her home in Britain to Australia in 1999.

"It made me think 'wow he didn't really expect me to be able to do this' and that really got me thinking 'there must be other things that people don't expect of me, let me find out what they are.'"

She got her start in math and science as a young girl. A unexpected win over her father at a game of chess, sparked an interest in determining other areas where she might be able to surprise those who may underestimate her. That desire to push the boundaries of her own knowledge drove her to seek out other challenges, eventually leading her the cutting edge of science -- quantum physics.

In the two decades since she arrived in Australia as a brash young post-doc -- so sure of her future success, she only purchased a one-way ticket -- she has pushed the research on quantum computing forward by leaps and bounds. In addition to her teaching and research duties as Scientia Professor of Quantum Physics at the University of New South Wales, she has been named Australian Research Council (ARC) Laureate Fellow and ARC Federation Fellow twice, and was a founding member and Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computer Technology. And she is the editor-in-chief of npj Quantum Information -- a scientific journal focused on the field of quantum information science.

"The best part about my work is the amazing variety and the constant challenge. There is always more to learn and I constantly look forwards to those moments when I have a little extra time to read and think."

Her research group was the first to develop a working single-atom transistor as well as the thinnest wires made from silicon.

The Australian of the Year award is one given each year to an Australian citizen who has been deemed to be a national role model across a wide variety of industries. Michelle Simmons is the 13th woman to earn the title of Australian of the Year.

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Marianne Grunberg-Manago - biochemist

Marianne Grunberg-Manago (January 6, 1921 – January 3, 2013)

Marianne Grunberg-Manago was a biochemist, born in the USSR, but moved to France as a child. Her discovery of the first nucleic-acid-synthesizing enzyme in 1955 was the first important step in cracking the genetic code.

Grunberg-Manago was the first woman to direct the International Union of Biochemistry, and she was also the first woman to preside the French Academy of Sciences from 1995 to 1996.

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One of a Kind Gifts Celebrating Women in STEM

It's the time of year again where I spend way too much time shopping through countless shops on Etsy looking for the perfect one of a kind gift for my geeky friends. Not because they're difficult to shop for, but because I'm continually overwhelmed by all the beautifully creative possibilities. Here's a list of some of the items I've fallen in love with, each honoring a ground-breaking woman in STEM.

Marie Tharp Linocut Portrait
I have long been a fan of Ele Willoughby's artwork, so picking one piece to feature here was difficult. But I am especially drawn to this linocut portrait of American geologist and oceanographic cartographer Marie Tharp, whose pioneering, thorough and complete ocean floor maps revealed the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Probably because she is on my list of women to write about in 2018.

Ele's shop Minouette also includes artwork of other women in science (her Marie Curie print glows in the dark!), animals, natural history, and fantastical beasts.

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Sophie Germain Cameo Necklace
I love all the necklaces from Auberg Designs. They're beautiful pieces of art in their own right. But I have a special fondness for her cameos of women in science.

This beautiful cameo necklace features the silhouette of French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher Sophie Germain. Germain, who became a pioneer of elasticity theory. Her work on Fermat's Last Theorem provided a foundation for mathematicians exploring the subject for hundreds of years.

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Annie Jump Cannon Stained Glass Panel
I was searching for a special gift for a friend when I came across the work of Ray ven Haylin. His panel featuring Annie Jump Cannon took my breath away. Not only does it show Annie herself, but she has the names of Hypatia and Aglaonice, two important women in the history of astronomy, etched among the stars.

Over the course of her career, Annie Jump Cannon analyzed and measured more stars than any other astronomer before or since, created a classification system that is still in use today, and did more to further our understanding of the universe than anyone else of her era.

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Katherine Johnson Print
Adrienne Norris' artwork features important women in history. This piece dedicated to Katherine Johnson highlights her many achievements as a computer and mathematician for NASA. Over the course of her remarkable career she worked with the Mercury project, the Apollo project, the Space Shuttle project, and even on plans for a mission to Mars.

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Chien-Shiung Wu Doll
Debbie Ritter of UneekDollDesigns creates one of a kind art dolls of important people from history. Her series of women in science are all great, but I really love her doll of Chien-Shiung Wu, the Chinese-American experimental physicist who made significant contributions in the field of nuclear physics. Wu worked on the Manhattan Project. She is best known for conducting the Wu experiment, where she disproved a fundamental "law" of nature. She was also a fierce advocate for women in science and engineering.

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Vera Rubin Enamel Pin
OGHMC, run by Holly M. Clifton, carries a variety of enamel pins that would appeal to self-rescuing princess. This beautiful enamel pin celebrates the life of the feminist scientist, and women's rights advocate Vera Rubin, who had a major role in discovering "dark matter."

What better way to honor the need for more women in STEM than by wearing the face of this life-long advocate for women in science on your lapel.

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Rosalind Franklin Pint Glass
Kristen and Geoff Zephyrus sell a variety of geeky glasses and mugs in their shop CognitiveSurplus. I especially like this pint glass featuring the likeness of Rosalind Franklin, the brilliant crystallographer whose X-rays revealed the structure of DNA to be a double helix. What a whimsical way to celebrate this ground-breaking scientist while toasting in the new year, or simply enjoying a quiet beer after a long day of working in the lab?

They also offer glasses featuring other notable women in science, so you can create your own set!

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Marie Curie in a Box Gift Set
Brandy Davis of PigseyArt has created what I think may be the best Marie Curie-filled gifts, a box set of delightful lasercut wood items -- a journal, magnets, a coaster, a pin and an ornament -- all to celebrate the life and work of one the most impressive scientists in all time.

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Handmade Mae C. Jemison Mug
Rosa Friedrichs was inspired to make this series of mugs after reading the book Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls. This handmade ceramic mug is meant to honor Dr. Mae C. Jemison, the first African American woman in space, and who continues to inspire young and old as a doctor who used satellites to improve health and protect the environment around the globe.

[Note: I have included Etsy Affiliate links in this post. I am exploring options for increasing my income from this blog to help me to continue to bring you the important stories of kickass women and girls. For each purchase made using these link I will received a small commission. Despite that, none of these items were chosen because of this program. Instead, they are all items I have selected because they are creative and they celebrate amazing women in science. If you want to help support the work I do here, please consider using these links to shop.]

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Euphemia Haynes - trailblazer and educator

Euphemia Haynes (September 11, 1890 – July, 25 1980) was a mathematician and educator, who became the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics when she graduated from the Catholic University of America in 1943, at the age of 53.

She was born into a prominent fourth generation black family in Washington, D.C. Her father worked as a dentist and invested in black-owned businesses. She was valedictorian of her graduating class of M Street High School in 1907, and went on to graduate from Washington D.C. Miner Normal School with distinction in 1909 and shortly thereafter began her long career in the Washington, D.C., school system.

While teaching she continued her own education to better serve her students and the larger community. In 1914, she graduated from Smith College with a major in mathematics and minor in psychology. In 1930, she earned her master's degree in education from the University of Chicago, with her thesis, "The Historical Development of Tests in Elementary and Secondary Mathematics." That same year, recognizing the importance of math education, she founded a new department at her alma mater, the Miner's Teachers College, to address the needs of young teachers learning how to teach mathematics: Division of Mathematics and Business Education, where she continued to serve as professor and chair of the department until she retired in 1959.

In addition to her duties to the college, she also taught in the public schools, moving through a variety of positions as she was needed. She taught elementary classes as well as high school mathematics, serving different schools throughout the district. She also occasionally taught part-time at Howard University.

In 1943, she became the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics when she graduated from the Catholic University of America. She was 53 years old, and her dedication to mathematics and the students of Washington, D.C., was as strong as ever. Continually frustrated by the lack of opportunities for black students to pursue academics instead of vocational training, she pushed for desegregation of the school system. In 1960, she joined the District of Columbia Board of Education, where she continued her mission to improve conditions for all students. In 1966, she became the first woman to serve as chair of the Board of Education.

Throughout her life, her devotion to education was equaled only by her devotion to her religious beliefs. In 1934 she helped found the Catholic Interracial Council of the District of Columbia, an  organization that sought to increase cooperation and understanding between African Americans and whites and advance the cause of social justice and equality for African Americans. She was the first vice-president of the Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women, and belonged to and served on the boards of several social welfare and civil rights organizations, including the Executive Committee of the DC Health and Welfare Council, the NAACP, the Urban League, and the AAUW.

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Margaret Hamilton - pioneering software engineer

Today's the birthday of computer science pioneer Margaret Hamilton. A lot has been written about her over the last couple of years, and I think most everyone has seen the photo of her standing next to the stack of binders filled with the code written by her and her team for NASA's Apollo program.

What I find fascinating about her work was the fact that she was building the field of computer software engineering as she went along. The brilliance of her work wasn't so much that she build a system to help the astronauts reach the moon, but that she built it to basically save them from their own mistakes.

"There was no second chance. We all knew that."

When NASA began its quest to send the first humans to the moon, there was immense pressure to make certain that whomever went up into space also came back down safely. Too much was riding on the success of the moon landing and any mistake could have dire consequences for the astronauts. It would be devastating to the space program if something terrible happened with millions of people around the world sitting on the edge of their seats watching each space launch and landing.

Astronauts are highly trained, intelligent people, selected for their ability to function under extreme pressure. But even astronauts make mistakes, push the wrong button, switch the wrong knob. How do you reconcile the absolute need for "no room for error" with the fact that "to err is human?"

Margaret Hamilton figured out a way.

When she joined the team of engineers working on the Apollo program, she brought with her a brilliant mind trained in both abstract mathematics and philosophy. This might seem like an unusual combination of interests, but its exactly what made her the perfect person to solve the problem facing NASA. Not only did she manage the team that wrote the code for the computers running the space ships, she created the entire system that would handle each process and correct for any human error that might endanger the astronauts while in space. She studied the mistakes they made in training exercises and made sure to include responses in the code to prevent these kinds of accidents from becoming an international tragedy during the actual mission.

And because there was no such thing as a software engineer before, she did it all from scratch, creating an entirely new field of engineering in the process.

[Image: Margaret Hamilton in one of the Apollo capsules, with an overlay of a photo of the Apollo command code printed on green bar paper.]

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Cathleen Morawetz - relentless problem solver

"Her courage and determination in tackling a hard problem relentlessly are characteristic of the finest problem solvers," Peter Sarnak, Professor, School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study, describing mathematician Cathleen Morawezt.

So often I write about women who've had to overcome multiple setbacks and fight for their place in history against incredible odds. In the case of Cathleen Morawetz (May 5, 1923 – August 8, 2017), it almost seems as though she was destined to take up a career in mathematics. Her parents met at Trinity College Dublin where her mother had recently switched majors from mathematics to history, and where her father John L. Synge began his life-long career in mathematical physics. As you would expect, both supported her interests in math and science from an early age. When she was still a very young child, her answer to the perennial question adults ask children "What would you like to be when you grow up?" was "I want to be a mathematician!" She said later that she didn't really know what a mathematician did, but she knew she wanted to be one just like her dad.

Growing up in a supportive home isn't enough to ensure a successful career, though. She needed the support of a wide variety of people along the way. When she was considering becoming a teacher in India after earning her bachelor's at the University of Toronto in 1945, a chance encounter with family friend and mathematician Cecilia Krieger steered back toward mathematics. Krieger encouraged her to apply for a scholarship to attend MIT to continue her studies.

But even having a master's degree isn't enough to ensure a successful career. When she was looking for a job in the post-war technology boom, she was told that companies didn't hire women. Luckily, her blessed father pulled a few strings and got her a job editing a mathematics manuscript on supersonic flow and shock waves by Richard Courant and Kurt Otto Friedrichs. This turned out to be more than simply an temporary gig to help pay the bills. It formed the foundation of her future research as well as introducing her to Richard Courant, the influential German American mathematician who founded the Courant Institute for graduate studies in applied mathematics at New York University.

Years later she would be the first to point out how fortunate she was to find that initial position at Courant, where she spent the the next six decades working through some rather hairy mathematical problems. During her first years, it was a fortuitous position which allowed her to work part-time and paid her enough to afford childcare and housekeeping help while also giving her the freedom to focus solely on her research when she was in the office. Like many women then, and now, she had to deal with inappropriate questions from colleagues about her ability to juggle motherhood and a career, often not even bothering to disguise the judgment that she was harming her children by being away from them. When asked if she found herself distracted at work worrying about her children, she quipped, "No, I’m much more likely to worry about a theorem when I’m with my children."

The job of a theoretical mathematician wasn't one that attracted many women, perhaps due to the expectation that mathematicians would stay in the office late into the night working through theorems -- a prospect that likely wasn't appealing to most people who had interests outside of mathematics. But because of the job flexibility at Courant, she was able to find a balance that worked for her. It was during this period that she came up with her first major breakthrough. Her research on the mathematics involved in transonic flow -- where both subsonic and supersonic sound waves exist simultaneously -- proved that engineers attempting to design airplane wings that eliminated shock waves altogether were impractical because changes in alignment and wind gusts could not be controlled, and instead the focus should be on designs that minimize the impact of shock waves.

"One of my daughters said to me that the problem of being a mathematician is that you're on stage all the time in the sense that you're constantly trying to achieve something in the form of proving a theorem. That's unending. You compete against yourself as well as others and it provides a special fascination in life."

As her children (four in all) grew up, she was able to take on more duties at Courant, including teaching. But she continued her research developing detailed mathematical models, many of which are still used in aerodynamics, acoustics, and optics. It was the research -- the unending work on trying to prove a theorem -- that fascinated her from the beginning. She realized early on in her career that her passion was for theoretical mathematics, and not in the actual work of applying it engineering or accounting. Her talent was in thinking about abstract concepts and then finding ways to express that using mathematics.

Over the course of her career she was awarded numerous award and honors. She was often the first woman to have earned that recognition, but she never stopped thinking about what a privilege it was and how she could use her position to encourage other women to pursue a career in mathematics. In 1998, at the age of 75, she received the National Medal of Science from President Bill Clinton, saying "It's a tremendous moment for me. And I hope it will draw attention to the idea that women can do math and will have some influence on women all the way from grade school to graduate school and beyond."

Cathleen Morawetz's story isn't one of overcoming hardships, but it is inspirational nonetheless because it shows us what women can achieve when given the chance, and echoes many of the modern day calls for a better work-life balance for all researchers, regardless of gender or parenting-status. She was given the early support she needed to take a chance on a difficult career, and then she found a place that enabled her to do her best work while also helping her to maintaining a life outside of research.

You can watch a series of fascinating interviews with her from 2010 and 2012 on the Simons Foundation.

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Leona Woods - visionary scientist

Leona Woods (August 9, 1919 – November 10, 1986) is best known as the only female physicists on the team that built the world's first nuclear reactor, which is a worthy memorial. But it was what led her to be on that team, and what she did afterward, that is truly worth celebrating.

Her intelligence was evident early in her life when she graduated from high school early and then earned her BS in chemistry at the age of 18. Her doctoral thesis on silicon oxide bands earned her the respect of fellow post-doc researchers, who hired her to be a part of Enrico Fermi's team studying nuclear physics as part of the Manhattan Project in the early years of World War II. In fact, they were working on building a nuclear reactor underneath the abandoned football stadium at the University of Chicago (the same one she had played on as a student), hoping to beat the Germans to unlocking the power of the atom.

They did, with her help. It was her idea to build and use geiger counters during experiments to analyze the results. And she was there when their reactor, known as Chicago Pile-1, went critical, setting the foundation for the work of other scientists at Los Alamos building the first atomic bomb which, in turn, helped end the war.

After the war, she continued her research in high-energy physics, astrophysics and cosmology, moving from laboratory to laboratory, teaching physics and publishing papers. Over the course of her career, she continually showed her visionary brilliance tackling a wide range of subjects using science to try and solve problems facing humanity. She wrote over 200 papers, including one on how to create an atmosphere on the moon.

Later in her career, she applied her experience teaching classes on environmental studies, engineering, engineering archaeology, mechanical aerospace and nuclear engineering. Her interests included using nuclear science to understand and protect the environment. She created a method to study tree rings using isotope ratios in order to learn more about prehistoric climate fluctuations. In fact, her research has contributed to our own understanding of human-caused changes to the climate.

Leona Woods was a forward-thinking scientist whose contributions to science are still influencing our understanding of the world around us. She is truly a Self-Rescuing Princess Society role model worth celebrating.

Check out this great interview she gave in 1986 about her time working on the Manhattan Project.

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Guiding Stars in Astronomy: Williamina Fleming

In celebration of the solar eclipse later this month, I am sharing stories of amazing women in astronomy in my series of Guiding Stars in Astronomy. Today's post shares the story of Scottish-American astronomer Williamina Fleming, who went from being a single mother working as a maid to one of the most proficient astronomers of the late-19th century.

Williamina Fleming (May 15, 1857 – May 21, 1911)

Williamina Fleming was the first member of the all-female team of Harvard computers, the women who calculated so many of the early astronomical discoveries and who are just now beginning to get the attention they deserve.

Williamina didn't set out to have a career in astronomy. She married James Fleming in Scotland in 1877, and when she was 21 they emigrated to Boston, where shortly thereafter he abandoned her with their small child, leaving her to fend for them both. She'd worked as a teacher before, but as a single mother, she was ineligible for any teaching position -- those were only for men and unmarried women. Instead, she took a position as a maid.

It was a placement that turned out to be a happy accident that changed the course of her life. Her employer happened to be Edward Pickering, director of the Harvard College Observatory. She performed her duties efficiently, and earned his respect as a housekeeper. He was having trouble with the computers he'd hired to process astronomical data, running the seemingly endless computations needed to analyze the information from the photographs taken with the observatory's telescope. Frustrated with them one day, he scoffed, "My Scottish maid could do better!"

As it turns out, she could. In 1881 he taught her how to analyze stellar spectra -- the emissions of the stars they were studying -- as shown on the photographic plates, and to make the necessary calculations to understand what they were looking at. By 1886, she was in charge of a large group of women hired to run these calculations -- the Harvard calculators, as they've come to be known. Many of them are some of the brightest women in astronomical history, such as Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, and Anonia Maury.

Harvard Computers hard at work. Photo Caption: Williamina Fleming (standing) presides over women computers at the Harvard College Observatory, 1891. Photo source: Harvard University Archives.

She devised one of the earliest systems for classifying stars, using the information about their relative amount of hydrogen observed in their spectra. It was a brilliant beginning of trying to organize stars by type, and was the predecessor for Annie Jump Cannon's classification system later on.

Over the next nine years, she catalogued more than 10,000 stars and other astronomical phenomena -- a significant contribution to the Draper Catalogue of Stellar Spectra, published in 1890, a substantial project undertaken by Pickering in honor of his predecessor Henry Draper to survey of the sky and to catalogue the stars. Perhaps her most notable discovery was the Horsehead Nebula in 1888, although there were many more discoveries over the next 20 years. She became so well respected in the astronomical field she was the first American woman to be named as an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society of London in 1906.

Her outstanding contribution to astronomy is even more remarkable when you consider that, unlike many of her computer colleagues, she never studied astronomy. In response to her skillful research she was given the position as Curator of Astronomical Photographs at Harvard in 1899, a role she cherished. She continued her research until her death in 1911, discovering an astounding 310 variable stars, as well as 10 novae and 52 nebulae. In 1910 it was her research that led to the discovery of the first white dwarf star.

You can read her journal on the Harvard University Archives.

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Annie Jump Cannon - astronomer
Over the course of her remarkable career, Annie Jump Cannon (December 11, 1863 - April 13, 1941) analyzed and measured more stars than any other astronomer before or since, created a classification system that is still in use today, and did more to further our understanding of the universe than anyone else of her era. Plus, you know, she has a pretty darn awesome name!

Chien-Shiung Wu - courageous hero and brilliant scientist
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