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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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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Sarah Loguen Fraser - trailblazing doctor

"My home and family have been a beacon to light the way for the poor, oppressed, and hunted of my race. The time has passed for the need of shelter, but God knows, we need to build strong and healthy bodies. To have those of my race come to me for aid—and for me to be able to give it—will be all the Heaven I want."

Sarah Loguen Fraser (January 29, 1850 – April 9, 1933) was the first woman to earn a medical degree from Syracuse University, in 1876, and the fourth African American woman to become a licensed physician in the United States. When she moved to the Dominican Republic with her husband, a pharmacist, she was that country's first female doctor.

As the story goes, her decision to pursue a career in medicine began on a fateful day in 1872 when she witnessed a terrible accident, and her inability to help. She'd been waiting for a train when she heard a scream. A cart loaded with goods had rolled over the leg of a small boy, pinning him underneath. She ran to his side, calling out for a doctor, but one never arrived.

She was in shock, and as she boarded her train she was mumbling about becoming a doctor herself. As it turns out, when she was finally able to notice the world around her again, she saw in the seat across from hers her own family's doctor. He agreed to mentor her, and the very next year she enrolled in Syracuse University's medical program -- one of four women in a class of 17, and the only African American.

When compared to the lives of the average woman of the era, and especially the average African American woman, Sarah Loguen determination to become a doctor would be exceptional. But considering her remarkable background, it may have been a natural, if still somewhat difficult and ambitious, course of action.

Her father, Jermain Wesley Loguen, had been born into slavery on a plantation in Tennessee, the son of a female slave -- who herself had been born free and kidnapped and sold into slavery as a child -- and the white master. At the age of 21, he rode his master's mare off the plantation and followed the Underground Railroad to freedom. After studying at the Oneida Institute, he eventually settled in Syracuse, New York, where he became a preacher and teacher in the flourishing black community there. He married the daughter of abolitionists, and together they raised a family and worked to address the needs of their community. One of the most important services they offered was to turn their home into a stop along the Underground Railroad, taking in over 1500 escaped slaves. The Loguen family was good friends with Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, among others prominent abolitionists. Her father was so well-known and well-respected with in the abolitionist movement for his work helping escaped slaves, he was referred to as the "King of the Underground Railroad."

So it shouldn't be much of a surprise to learn that their children, who grew up in a home that often harbored fugitive slaves, and with a father who was himself a former slave who often met with other escaped slaves now serving as leaders in the anti-slavery movement, went on to do great things to improve the lives of African Americans. For Sarah, medicine may have simply been an extension of the times she worked alongside her mother and local Native American women as they tended to the injuries and illnesses of those they harbored.

Perhaps this kind of greatness was to be expected from Sarah and her siblings. When she graduated in 1876, she was the first African American woman to earn a medical degree from Syracuse, and only the fourth to become a doctor in the entire country. In fact, until this point, all other women doctors had graduated from women's only institutions. Sarah was the first to attend a co-ed program. She interned at the Women’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where she studied pediatrics, and later at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston -- two of the leading teaching hospitals for women in medicine during this era.

Once she was ready to hang out her own shingle, she moved to Washington, DC, to care for the growing African American community there. Although technically she didn't actually hang her own shingle -- Frederick Douglass did the honors. It was through the Douglass family that she was introduced to the man who would eventually become her husband, Dr. Charles Fraser, a chemist who ran a pharmacy in Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. When she moved there, she became the country's first female doctor, where she offered free treatment to poor women and children, earning the nickname "Miss Doc."

When she returned to the United States after her husband's death in 1894, she was shocked to find that things had changed so dramatically after the end of Reconstruction. Laws and policies put into place during Reconstruction had opened doors for African Americans, creating opportunities in society and politics. Its abrupt end meant a return to discrimination and segregation. Sarah, unable to open a private practice, and no longer able to enroll her daughter Gregoria in the school of her choice, decided to move to Paris for a few years. When Gregoria was old enough to attend college, the two moved back to Syracuse, where Gregoria enrolled in Syracuse University, and Sarah practiced pediatric medicine and trained midwives out of her home.

She continued to practice medicine throughout the rest of her life, although with more and more obstacles placed in front of her as time went on. Regardless, she continued to use her skills to serve women and children in the African American community.

For more reading:

Upstate Medical University in Syracuse's brochure: "Dr. Sarah Loguen's Dominican Republic"

Journal of the National Medical Association biography, published in 2000: "Sarah Loguen Fraser, MD (1850 to 1933): the fourth African-American woman physician"

Hobart and William Smith Colleges student project from 2012: "Celebrating the Life of Sarah Loguen Fraser"

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Eleanor Davies-Colley - pioneering surgeon

Eleanor Davies-Colley (21 August 1874 – 10 December 1934) was one of first few women to pursue a career in surgery in the United Kingdom. Coming from a family with a long background in medicine surely influenced her decision to take up the scalpel, despite the lack of opportunities or support for women in such a highly competitive and demanding field. Her determination paid off not just in terms of her own success, but benefited countless women throughout London over the course of her career.

After graduating from Queen's College, she spent a few years as a social worker in the East End of London, working mainly with the children of poor families. It was here where she became acquainted with the dire need for medical services to treat those who couldn't afford to see a private doctor or get treatment at the existing hospitals around London. In 1920 she enrolled in classes at the London School of Medicine for Women, where she graduated with a MB BS in 1907.

She was adamant about becoming a surgeon, following in her father's footsteps. She took a position as house surgeon at the New Hospital for Women (Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital), while earning her medical degree from the University of London. It was believed that surgery would be too taxing for a woman, and many people tried to talk her out of it. But she persisted, and in 1911, she was named the first female fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.

In that same year she and her colleague Maud Chadburn began raising funds for a new South London Hospital for Women and Children. They were both working at the New Hospital for Women in central London, and both recognized the need for another hospital serving the people of south London, many of whom were being turned away for lack of space. Their mission was to create a facility that would not only address the needs of women and children, an often under-served population, as well as provide career opportunities for women in medicine, who were generally refused employment at other hospitals. It was a win-win for the women of London, and the South London Hospital for Women and Children was funded almost entirely by donations by feminists who were all too familiar with the needs of both segments of the population.

On 4 July 1916 Queen Mary opened the newest all-female hospital in London, pledged with the mission of only serving women and children under 7 and only hiring women. Dr. Davies-Colley worked there throughout her career in a variety of positions, including senior surgeon.

In 1917 she helped to found the Medical Women's Federation, to broaden the efforts to provide professional opportunities for women in medicine while also working to improve health care for women and their families.

Her dedication to treating women from all backgrounds, as well as her meticulous attention to detail and gentle bedside manner, made her a much-beloved and respected member of the medical community. In addition to her duties at the South London Hospital, she also served as the senior obstetrician at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital, and surgeon at the Marie Curies Cancer Hospital, where she treated patients with uterine and breast cancers using new therapies derived from radium.

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SRPS Role Model: Dr. Fannie Emanuel

I love sharing stories of women pursuing their dreams, as you probably already know. It's kinda my thing. It's particularly important, though, to celebrate older women who take up a new and challenging goal in mid-life or later. We have too few role models for this age group, so when I come across stories of amazing older women I am extra excited to share them with you.

After working nearly 20 years as treasurer for her husband's business, Fannie Emanuel (July 31, 1871 – March 31, 1934) went looking for more ways to help her community in Chicago. She began taking college courses in social sciences, and possibly thinking about studying medicine. In 1908 she decided to put into action the concepts she was learning in her classes, and established the Emanuel House, a settlement house with the mission "to inspire higher ideals of manhood and womanhood, to purify the social condition, and to encourage thrift and neighborhood pride, and good citizenship."

Settlement houses were private organizations focused on improving the communities they served by offering a wide range of services. Emanuel House addressed the disparity in educational opportunities for the children in the poor, predominately black neighborhood by offering kindergarten classes and a boys' and girls' club. Mothers could take classes in cooking, sewing, or domestic science, as well as attend regular mother's meetings. Emanuel House also hosted a free dental clinic and an employment bureau.

The part of Fanny Emanuel's story I find inspiring is she never stopped reaching for more. In 1911, at the age of 40, she made the decision to pursue a medical degree. When she enrolled in classes at the Chicago Hospital College of Medicine her two adult sons were also earning their own college degrees. Here was a woman who worked helping her husband's business while raising a family and staying active her community who, instead of resting in the comfort she'd earned, set out to do more.

While operating her private practice in Chicago, and between family trips to her summer cabin in northern Michigan, Dr. Emanuel continued her social work with important community organizations. She gave her time, energy, and business expertise to groups addressing the needs of the black community, such as the WYCA, Ida B. Wells Women's Club, and Delta Theta sorority, as well as serving on the Board of Directors for the Phyllis Wheatley Club (named after Phyllis Wheatley, a slave poet who lived from 1753 to 1784), an institution serving African American women, often providing lodging for younger women as well as retirement homes for older or disabled or sick women.

Dr. Fannie Emanuel was a woman who never stopped working to improve the lives of her neighbors, and when given an opportunity to follow her dreams she took it, and for that she's most certainly a Self-Rescuing Princess Society role model.

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May Edward Chinn and her breakthrough cancer research

SRPS Women in Medicine: May Edward Chinn
(April 15, 1896 - December 1, 1980)

May Edward Chinn had originally wanted a career in music, but was warned that it would be difficult because of her race, so she turned her full attention to the other field where her talents were obvious: science. As a senior at Columbia Teacher's College, she took a lab tech position in pathology lab, and from there she decided to attend medical school. In 1926, she became the first African American woman to graduate from Bellevue Hospital Medical College and to intern at Harlem Hospital.

Her path was not easy. In the 1920s, no hospitals or research facilities would hire African Americans. The Rockerfeller Institute was very interested her until they learned she was black instead of Asian or white as they had assumed from her name. Instead, she started a private practice based out of Harlem --  the center of the Black community -- seeing patients in her office or in their homes. It was this experience of seeing how the conditions people lived in impacted their overall health that led her to complete a master's degree in public health from Columbia University in 1933.

After the Harlem Riots in 1935 Mayor Fiorello La Guardia demanded local institutions do a better job of integrating their staff. So in 1940, fourteen years after she graduated from medical school, Dr. Chinn was finally granted admitting privileges to Harlem Hospital.

In 1944, she took a position at the Strang Clinic, where she worked for several decades on cancer research, a topic she was interested in after serving the aging population of Harlem. She noticed that many of her older patients were dying from various cancers rather than heart attacks or other illness, and she wondered if there were ways to predict or detect cancers early enough to have them treated. It was her research for Dr. Papanikolaou that eventually led to the development of the Pap smear, a life-saving test for early detection of cervical cancer.

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Pioneering Doctor and Kickass Woman You Need to Know: Charlotte Baker

Charlotte Johnson Baker (March 30, 1855 - October 31, 1937) is the Kickass Woman of the Month for March, and with good reason! Like other pioneering women of the era, she set her sights quite a bit higher than what society deemed appropriate for a young lady. She devoted her life to improving the lives of women and children, first as a doctor, and then as an activist.



Charlotte grew up in a somewhat unconventional family in Massachusetts, where she was allowed to indulge her tomboy tendencies. It's likely this influenced her decision to teach the  new sporting fad for young women -- gymnastics -- after graduating from Vassar College.

Soon after, though, she took a position as assistant to Dr. Eliza M. Mosher at the Woman's Reformatory Prison in Sherbourne, Massachusetts, where she witnessed the hardships faced by far less privileged women and girls. Her experiences from the two years she worked with Dr. Mosher set the course for the rest of her life. She devoted herself to advancing conditions for women and girls, and often broke social convention to do so.

First, she dedicated herself to earning a medical degree, specializing in obstetrics. Which she did in 1881 when she graduated from the University of Michigan, the only college offering co-ed classes at the time. She married her classmate, Fred Baker, and they moved to Akron to set up practice. But Charlotte contracted malaria, and the couple quickly moved to the New Mexico, hoping a drier climate would speed her recovery. Santa Fe at the time was still the frontier, and she and Fred built their own house in the desert, and treated local ranch families. In 1888 they moved again to San Diego, at the time still a small port town, in search of better schools for their children. The Drs. Baker set up practice again, making Dr. Charlotte (as she was known) the first female physician in the area.

San Diego also offered more conventional social opportunities, and Charlotte took full advantage of them. Like many middle class women of her era, she was active in a variety of women's clubs, each dedicated to a progressive ideal -- temperance, education, labor reform. She also continued to work as an obstetrician. Over the course of her career, she delivered over 1000 babies, and was exceedingly proud that she never lost a mother in labor.



Her dedication to assisting women and children never faltered, and she spent much of her life split between her medical career and her political activism -- and she was a pioneer in both of these pursuits. She was the first woman elected president of the San Diego County Medical Society, and she and Fred continued to attend medical conventions around the country, where she regularly present papers sharing her contributions to the advancement of medicine.

And she also served on the boards of numerous organizations like the YWCA, the Temperance League, and the San Diego Equal Suffrage Association. In 1911, when California was considering giving women the vote, she traveled the backroads of San Diego with three other women, speaking to the locals about the importance of women's suffrage. Her efforts had a huge impact on the final vote, where San Diego led the state in approving the measure.

The hallmark of a self-rescuing princess is, of course, that she is her own hero. But after they've saved themselves, so to speak, they also work to rescue others. Charlotte was a woman who was born to a reasonably wealthy family, and raised with privileges so many other girls in the mid-1800s couldn't even imagine. And yet, instead of assuming the life of leisure expected of women of her social standing, she spent her life serving her passion: improving the lives of women and children both in the intimate one-on-one experiences as a doctor treating her patients, as well as in the larger political realm where she worked tirelessly to address the specific concerns of all women, and especially those without the privileges she enjoyed.

Learn more about her induction into the San Diego Women's Hall of Fame in 2009
Read about her and other San Diego women in Remarkable Women of San Diego: Pioneers, Visionaries and Innovators, by Hannah S. Cohen and Gloria G. Harris

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SRPS Women in STEM: Lucy Hobbs Taylor

Lucy Hobbs Taylor - Pioneering Dentist
(March 14, 1833 – October 3, 1910)

In 1866, Lucy Hobbs Taylor graduated from the Ohio College of Dental Surgery, making her the first American woman to earn a Dental degree. She went on to become one of the most prominent dentists in the state of Kansas, and was a role model for women looking to enter the field of dentistry.

Born in New York, she grew up determined "to enter a profession where she could earn her bread not alone by the sweat of her brow, but by the use of her brains also." As a young woman, she took a teaching position in a frontier town in Michigan, where she boarded with a physician whose work led her to consider a career in medicine. In fact, he encouraged her to move to Cincinnati to attend the Eclectic Medical College. Unfortunately, they weren't accepting female students, but they kindly suggested she consider dentistry.

She applied to the the Ohio College of Dental Surgery, but they also barred women. Instead, she took private lessons from one of the school's professors, and in 1961 was proficient enough to open her own practice without a degree, a common practice at the time. Four years later, recognizing her growing professional reputation, signaled by being accepted into the Iowa State Dental Society, they reconsidered and allowed her to enroll as a senior. When she graduated the following year, 1866, she became the first woman to earn a doctorate in dentistry.

She married in 1867 and convinced her husband to also become a dentist. They moved to Kansas, where they created one of the most successful dental practices in the state. They worked together until his death, after which Lucy took some time off to work for women's rights, but in 1895 she reopened her practice.

Because of Dr. Taylor's pioneering example, by 1900 almost one thousand women had gone into dentistry. She was a highly revered in her community and among her professional peers. Upon her death, the Lawrence Daily Journal wrote, "Dr. Lucy Taylor was one of the most striking figures in Lawrence, she occupied a position of honor and ability, for years she occupied a place high in the ranks of her profession. Dr. Taylor was a great charitable worker and did much good in a quiet, unobtrusive manner."

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Inspiration: Pioneering women in medicine you need to know

11 brilliant women who broke through glass ceilings in medicine, but chances are you've never heard of them.

In my research for this blog I've come across some truly inspirational women whose hard work and dedication broke down barriers and created new opportunities for other women. And yet none of these women were featured in any of my history books growing up.

Women have worked as caregivers throughout history, nursing the sick and injured, and preparing medicinal herbs and tinctures. But with the advent of medicine as a science, women were too often barred from serving in professional roles such as doctor or pharmacist. These positions required extensive education and training, and the doors to those institutions were closed to many of the brightest and most determined women.

But there were a few truly remarkable women who persevered and managed to break into the all-male medical schools. And, once they'd earned their degree, they turned around and created new colleges and hospitals specifically for the purpose of educating other women.

These are the the women who fascinate me. They pushed forward, and then reached back to bring more women with them!

I've gathered together some of the women who've inspired me in my readings through the years, spanning three centuries of American history. Each of the women below worked as a professional in medicine in one capacity or other. Some went on to start their own training courses or colleges to open doors for more women to follow their dreams of working as a nurse or doctor. Others used their training to serve their community, often in times of severe and shameful discrimination. All of these women were the first in their field, breaking down barriers for others who came after them.

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Nobel Women - Physiology or Medicine

In honor of the 2016 Nobel Prizes announced recently, this post is the third in my series of Nobel Women, highlighting the women who've won a Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. You can also read my previous posts about the women who've won a Nobel Prize in Physics and Chemistry.

There have been significantly more Nobel Prizes awarded to women for their work in physiology and medicine than for physics or chemistry combined -- 12 in total. Perhaps this has something to do with more women being able to enter the world of medicine and medical research than in other scientific fields. Or perhaps it is simply a matter of there having been more scientist overall working on understanding physiological mechanisms and searching for answers to medicine's biggest questions.

What I found most interesting while researching the work of these women is how each scientist's discovery laid the foundation for the next scientist's research, and that there is a clear line of women standing on the shoulders of their female predecessors in the quest for scientific knowledge.

Who were these women and what made their research noteworthy to the Nobel Committee?

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Science Fair Rock Star: Anika Cheerla

This is the second in an ongoing series highlighting some of the amazing young women participating in this year's Google Science Fair. (Here is the first post.) Each has survived the rigorous first pass and have moved into the first regional round. The second set of winners will be announced on August 11, narrowing the field of candidates for the final round. You can be sure I'll be watching the celebration event on September 27, 2016. 

Looking at the list of Regional Finalists for the 2016 Google Science Fair, one name jumps out at me right away. Anika Cheerla was one of the 2015 Finalists as well! Last year she created a neural net program that could be used to detect brain damage when presented with MRI scans and clinical features and aid in diagnosing Alzheimer's disease in patients. Her Alzheimer's screening program has a remarkable 95% accuracy rate, and dramatically cut down on the "wait and see" time doctors often employ for patients whose scans are not as clear to the human eye. Oh, and at the time she was only 13.

She's back with another brilliant bioinformatics project: Automated Prediction of Future Breast Cancer Occurrence from Non-Cancerous Mammograms. This time she's using her love for research and coding to predict the likelihood of a patient developing breast cancer by analyzing the data from previous mammograms. And, again (no surprise!), her method works.

She took images from over 400 mammograms of healthy breast tissue and ran them through a series of algorithms to teach her code how to recognize changes that eventually lead to cancerous growths, creating a program that is 35% better at predicting cancer than previous methods employed by medical staff.

Accurate prediction of an individual's future cancer risk helps doctors and patients alike: enabling the early detection of breast cancer if it does arise and allowing patients to get possible interventions to lower their cancer risk. Hopefully, this research is a step towards reducing the fatality rate of breast cancer. My system also can significantly reduce burden on on our health care systems and patients by reducing the false positive rates of the mammograms, which often leads to expensive MRI scans and invasive biopsies.

Until now, the purpose of regular mammogram screening has been to detect existing cancer. But what if it could predict cancer before it develops? How great would it be to have more infrequent screenings that were able to give doctors and patients a better idea of who is more likely to develop cancer based on changes in breast tissue, relieving the financial strain on medical facilities and saving many patients undue worry while giving others a better chance through pre-treatment routines?

Perhaps by the time Anika Cheerla is able to fine tune her algorithm through further study, this may become a reality. Did I also mention she's only 14? With brilliant young scientists like this, the future is bright for all of us.

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Ettie Rout - A problematic hero

I came across this picture of Ettie Annie Rout the other day and decided to do a little research. What I have learned since has inspired me. And saddened me. She was a brave woman who traveled the world during wartime, took an active role addressing serious social issues, and promoted family planning and distributed advice and devices to prevent STDs and unwanted pregnancies at the risk of her social standing, and often even her personal safety. And much of writings were most certainly classist, if not completely racist.

As often happens when discussing humans, and especially those from other eras, the person who does amazing works is still likely to be a flawed character. The dilemma for any historian, even a part-time history blogger like myself, is how to simultaneously celebrate the parts we like and honestly address the parts we do not. How does one write about the remarkable life of a woman who risked so much to promote safe sex and family planning, while also acknowledging the terrible influence eugenics had on her beliefs? When discussing it on twitter, it was referred to as the "Margaret Sanger problem." Bascially, how do you celebrate a woman who did amazing work, but for ugly reasons?

The best answer I've come up with is to do my best to explore both the positive and negative aspects of a person's life and work. When it comes to white women in the late-19th and early-20th century, too often there is at least a tinge of colonialism, racism, and classism to be dealt with. In some cases, it is a full-on stain, and many times I leave those women for a different discussion. But sometimes, even those whose motivations were the very things we rail against today, their story is still one I find inspirational.

Such is the case with Ettie Rout. From what I can find online, her work prior to World War I was already quite impressive, and while some of the ideas behind her work as a sexual educator during and after the war are, frankly, revolting, her work itself was revolutionary.

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Rachel Fuller Brown - scientist and advocate

When she was fourteen, Rachel Fuller Brown dropped out of school to pursue a degree at a vocational school with the intention of helping to support her family. Her father had abandoned them and she and her mother and brother were struggling to get by. Fortunately for all of us, her mother put her foot down and forced her to return to to her studies, insisting that her own daughter would attend college and earn the degree she never could.

Rachel went on to study chemistry in college, earning her Bachelor's at Mount Holyoke and her Doctorate at the University of Chicago, and eventually was part of a partnership that discovered an antifungal medicine still used today to treat serious fungal infections related to chemotherapy, AIDS, and organ transplants.

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Google Science Fair Winner Olivia Hallisey!

Congratulations to Olivia Hallisey, the Grand Prize winner in the 2015 Google Science Fair!

Her project was an amazingly simple invention that will save countless lives around the world -- an Ebola Assay Card that allows fast detection of Ebola in remote locations, and can carry life-saving antibodies to the right places as quickly as possible. Her simple silk protein assay sets up in 30 minutes, costs less than $25, and can go for a week without refrigeration.

Winning the Grand Prize $50,000 scholarship will give her the financial support needed to make her card a multi-disease diagnostic assay, meaning it can save even more lives!

Brava Olivia! I can't wait to see what you do next!

If you like the work I do here at Self-Rescuing Princess Society,
please consider donating to my Patreon.

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You may also be interested in:

Science Fair Rock Star - Lauren Rojas
Twelve year old Lauren Rojas's science project for school wasn't your typical science fair fare. Instead of building the ubiquitous baking soda volcano, she wanted to test the effects of altitude on air pressure and temperature. So she built a weather balloon, attached several cameras to record the view, and a high altitude computer to track the changes in temperature, air pressure and altitude.


Samantha Smith, Cold War Princess
In 1982, the US and USSR were still quite deep in the cold war. It may be hard to remember now, but we were still worried about nuclear attacks. Not in the naive way the folks in the 50s and 60s were ducking under desks or building bunkers. By the late-70s and early-80s, we were pretty much aware that any nuclear attack would be the end of civilization as we know it, and survival was unlikely.


Happy Birthday - Dr. Dorrit Hoffleit
During World War II, she went to work at the Aberdeen Proving Ground ballistics laboratory in Maryland. Not unlike many women working for the war effort, she was forced to take a position below her status while she watched men who had less experience take higher level jobs. Frustrated that women weren't getting the training they needed and the promotions they deserved...

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Kickstart This!

Quick... how many women in science can you name? (Hint: I sincerely hope it's more than Marie Curie, or I haven't been doing my job.)

When Anouk Charles and Benoit Fries went looking for STEM inspiration for their daughter, they realized their lack of knowledge about female scientists. When they asked their friends for help and learned how sadly common this situation was they took matter into their own hands. With the help of an illustrator friend, they developed their Women in Science Card Game, featuring leading women in science throughout history.

The fundamental idea is to familiarize players with women who have left their mark on science and often did not receive the recognition they were due. This isn’t just a question of fairness and gender equality, it’s also a matter of offering role models with whom young girls can identify.

It’s hardly surprising that few girls display an interest in physics or mathematics when they never hear about women who made extraordinary discoveries in these spheres.

20% of the profits generated by the game will be donated to local organizations promoting women in science.

They game play is easy enough for even younger players to be able to pick up the game and start playing right away -- match four cards of the same color to form sets or "labs" with the first player to make three labs the winner -- but interesting enough to hold the attention of older players. Each card features a clever illustration and a short description of what makes that scientist special.

I just love this idea! As a kid, I would have loved just reading the cards, using them as a kind of pocket encyclopedia. In fact, I could see parents or teachers using these cards to introduce new scientists to young people, and prompting them to seek out more info on each woman.



I wish I could order several sets to give them away as birthday and holiday gifts throughout the year. I'll have to settle for one set, and have to invite my favorite little future-scientists over to play cards.

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Weekend Reading

There are only three entries for this week's Weekend Reading post, but don't be fooled... each of them are quite long and full of fascinating information or heart-felt memories. And all of them are perfect for a quiet afternoon of reading and pondering.

Who was Janet Vaughan, and what did she do? It turns out, she did quite a bit to improve our medical care, in that she almost single-handedly transformed how we do blood transfusions. Rose George has written a wonderfully detailed account of the amazing life of this remarkable woman.

Polly Toynbee asked her in 1984 how she would like to be remembered. And this woman who was instrumental in setting up mass blood donation and transfusion; who dared to stick a large needle into the breastbone of a small burned girl; who did science in hell; who never stopped encouraging science in all ways, and women to do more of it, said, “As a scientist. That I have been able to solve, to throw light onto fascinating problems. But as a scientist who had a family. I don’t want to be thought of as a scientist who just sat thinking. It’s important you have a human life.”

(photo source: jhencolors2)

Erica Watson first traveled to Denali during college, for a summer job. But the mountain and the magic held her, and she returned each summer, until she finally just never left. She writes about life and love and how this place has kept its grip on her, in her amazing piece for Vela, The Postcard Days.

Now, looking up from my clumsy feet, shuffling around the porch in clunky white boots, what painted itself around me was not a scene from a postcard, but a scene from a life, shifting with every breath.

Marguerite Del Giudice writes in National Geographic about the importance of women in science and why we should continue to ensure that more young women are taking that career track. In her piece, Why It's Crucial to Get More Women Into Science, she explains that it's more than simply a matter of encouraging women. It's about how women tend to approach science differently and bring different issues to the fore.

"We can be interested in women and science, and their participation, and how many are here and there," [Stanford science historian Londa Schiebinger] says. "But the big difference is, what knowledge and technologies do you have? What's the outcome? Who are things designed for?"

Indeed.

Please feel free to leave links to what you're reading and enjoying the comments!

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Latin@ Heritage Month - Latinas in Space!

This is the first in a four-part series of posts about Latinas working in the Space Industry. You can read posts two, three, and four. There is only one Latina who has gone to space (so far), but there are many more working on the ground as engineers and scientists with NASA. Their stories are just as important and inspiring for young women looking at a career in STEM. And, as we saw in the recent LatinaStyle article, we desperately need more young Latinas in STEM careers.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a million new jobs are created every year in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math–better known as STEM– and by 2022 there will be nine million STEM jobs available. Although the U.S. Census Bureau states that Latinos are the largest growing minority group in the country, labor statistics demonstrate that Latinas only have two percent of all the STEM jobs currently in the U.S.; it remains a field dominated by white males.

I don't intend this to be an exhaustive list by any means. Simply an opportunity to highlight some of the amazing women working in the space program.

Ellen Ochoa
Ellen Ochoa was the first Latina in space. But that's only one of her many achievements in her career with NASA.

She grew up at a time when space exploration was just beginning. She excelled in school, in both the arts and sciences, but as as a girl she never dreamed of becoming an astronaut herself. She actually thought she'd grow up to be a professional musician. It wasn't until her friends encouraged her to take a closer look at Physics as an option.

She was hooked. Her love of math and science became her route to trying to figure out the world around her. She earned a BS in Physics from SDSU, and then a MS and PhD in engineering from Stanford. It was while she was studying at Stanford that Sally Ride joined the astronaut team, and a whole new world opened up for young women like her. She immediately began pursuing a career with NASA, joining the NASA research team studying optical systems. In fact, she is a co-inventor on three patents relating to optical systems.

In January 1990, she was selected by NASA for the astronaut program. Her first flight was aboard the shuttle Discovery in 1993. By the time she returned from her last mission she'd logged almost 1000 hours in space.

In 2002, she became Deputy Director of Flight Crew Operations, and in 2006, she was promoted to Director. She has also served as the Chief of Intelligent Systems Technology at Ames Research Center. But most recently, in January 2013, she became the first Latina and second woman to be appointed as Director of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

In addition to being the head of Johnson Space Center, she is also a classically trained flutist and a private pilot.

“I am committed to space flight, human exploration, learning how to do more and more. I like the fact that it is much bigger than myself, important to my country and to the world. I like being able to contribute in this way.”

Links: 
Ellen Ochoa biography on Wikipedia
Ellen Ochoa biography on NASA website
Ellen Ochoa profile on American Physical Society website


Serena Auñón
Serena Auñón is the second Latina to become a NASA astronaut.

Serena Auñón earned a BS in Electrical Engineering at George Washington University, and then an MD at the University of Texas Health Science Center in 2001. That might seem like an abrupt change in course. She explains she wanted to be able to apply the critical thinking skills she learned as an engineer to helping people. Medicine is her passion. She served her two residencies in internal medicine and aerospace medicine. She also earned a Master of Public Health degree in 2006.

She joined NASA as a flight surgeon, and in 2009 was selected as an astronaut candidate. Although she has yet to have her chance at space travel, she is a key person on the support team for the latest group of astronauts and cosmonauts heading to the International Space Station. She uses her medical expertise to support astronauts in space as well as helping to design equipment and technology.

In 2012, she piloted a DeepWorker 2000 submersible as part of a NASA/NOAA NEEMO 16 underwater exploration mission off the coast of Florida.

"Always follow your passion. If you go down a path you think others want you to follow, you'll be miserable. What you love is your passion, and everything else will work out."

Links: 
Serena Auñón biography on Wikipedia
Serena Auñón piece on NBCLatino.com


Candy Torres
Candy Torres is a strong advocate for girls, and especially Latinas, pursuing a career in STEM.

She grew up in South River, New Jersey. She knew early on that she wanted to be an astronaut, but being a Puerto Rican girl in the '60s, that wasn't necessarily in the stars. She had to confront the prejudices of the day, but she was determined to not let it get in her way. While she waited for her chance, she devoured as much science fiction as she could to keep her dream alive. She was mesmerized by the use of technology to solve problems in shows like SuperCar, Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, and, of course, Star Trek.

At the age of 14, she joined the Civil Air Patrol where she learned marching, drilling and wilderness survival. Oh, and she learned to fly a plane. She graduated from high school in 1971, and attended classes at Douglas College (now part of Rutgers), where she managed to cobble together a self-made major in space sciences from classes in vastly different fields such as geology, engineering, and astronomy. It was her professor in astronomy that helped her land her first job after graduation, working on the Copernicus OAO-3C Satellite at Princeton. From there, she was hired to convert large data files for NASA. The work was being done by hand, and was time consuming and quite boring. Torres, ever the innovator, taught herself FORTRAN so she could write a program to do the conversions in a more systematic way.

In 1983, she drove for 21 hours to be on site when Sally Ride made her historic journey into space. She knew that this would be an important opening for other young women to join the space program. And then, only a few weeks later, she was offered her dream job: a contractor position with McDonnell Douglas working on the software for the Space Shuttle program. Since then, she has also worked on projects supporting the International Space Station.

"I had a very curious mind, and I was not willing to let go of that."

Links: 
Candy Torres biography on STEMWomen.net
Candy Torres biographical piece on CNN
Candy Torres piece in The Atlantic


Dr. Nitza Margarita Cintrón
Dr. Nitza Margarita Cintrón is the chief of NASA Johnson Space Center Space Medicine and Health Care Systems Office. What started out in 1979 as a two year plan to create the Biochemistry Laboratory turned into a full-fledged career spanning three decades.

Born in Puerto Rico, she traveled often during her childhood, following her Army father around the world. After his retirement, the family settled in Puerto Rico, where she excelled in school, and was a self-driven learner when it came to the sciences and math. Even at an early age, she dreamed of being a scientist. She earned a BS in Biology from the University of Puerto Rico, and in 1972 entered the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology program at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, earning her PhD there in 1978.

She applied to the Astronaut Corps and passed the finals, but poor eyesight limited her to earth-bound work. But it was her academic credentials that impressed the folks at NASA, and they offered her a position as a NASA scientist. In addition to her work on the Biochemistry Laboratory, she also served as the project scientist on the Space Lab 2 mission as part of the shuttle Challenger launch in 1985.

NASA sponsored her studies at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, where she graduated in 1995 with her MD, specializing in internal medicine. She was named the director of the Life Sciences Research Laboratories in support of medical operations, a position that enabled her to continue to focus on both the science and medical aspects of space travel.

She was awarded the Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, the highest science honor given by NASA. And in 2004, she was inducted into the Hispanic Engineer's National Achievement Awards Conference Hall of Fame in Los Angeles.

"In everything you do, always do you very best, be your very best. Everyone has skills and talents, and if you do your very best with them, you will always be a winner."

Links: 
Nitza Margarita Cintrón biography on Wikipedia
Nitza Margarita Cintrón biography on Latina Women of NASA

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Eliza Ann Grier - the first black woman to receive a MD in Georgia

Eliza Ann Grier (1864 - 1902) was the first African American woman licensed to practice medicine in the state of Georgia.

Very little is known about her early life. She was born during the Civil War. Her parents were slaves in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, which made her a slave as well. After emancipation, her family moved to Atlanta, where she grew up and attended school. She originally intended to become a teacher, and attended Fisk University. It took her seven years to graduate because she took every other year off to work picking cotton and working other jobs to pay for her education.

Just before graduating from Fisk, she changed her focus to becoming a physician. She felt that it would be the best way she could serve her community for her to become a doctor instead of a teacher.

When I saw colored women doing all the work in cases of accouchement ... or, childbirth and all the fee going to some white doctor who merely looked on, I asked myself why should I not get the fee myself.

She wrote to the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in December of 1890 inquiring about the cost of tuition and whether there was any work she could do. She was accepted into the school, but still had to work every other year to afford the costs. In 1897 she received her medical degree, and became one of the few African American women physicians in the US. Later that year, she made history as the first African American woman to apply for and receive a medical license in Georgia.

[S]ome of the best white doctors in the city have welcomed me and say that they will give me an even chance in the profession. That is all I ask.

She worked to improve the conditions in the African American community. She struggled to establish and maintain a private practice, and supplemented her income by teaching at the Hospital and Training School for Nurses in Charleston, South Carolina.

In 1901, she attended the Tuskegee Negro Conference. Tragically, she contracted influenza in 1901, and was unable to continue seeing patients during her illness, which caused her financial strain and jeopardized her future. She reached out to help from many prominent African American and feminist leaders, but none were able to help her enough. Sadly, she died in 1902.

If you like the work I do here at Self-Rescuing Princess Society,
please check out my Patreon.

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More reading:

Georgia Encyclopedia
National Library of Medicine
Black Past

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Mary McLeod Bethune: suffrage and civil rights work
Mary McLeod Bethune's work with her school was remarkable in itself, and had she only focused on that, she would still be heralded for her contributions to society. But she did not. She could not. Her experiences trying to improve the lives of young African American women showed her that there was much work to be done -- both for their race and for their gender.

Happy Birthday - Septima Poinsette Clark
Septima Poinsette was born on May 3, 1898, in Charleston, South Carolina. Her father had been born a slave, and worked as a caterer after the Civil War. Her mother was born free in Charleston, but was taken to Haiti during the Civil War. After the war, she worked as a launderer, but did not work for whites, and refused to let her daughters work in white houses...

SRPS Shout-Out - Althea Gibson
"Shaking hands with the Queen of England was a long way from being forced to sit in the colored section of the bus going into downtown Wilmington, North Carolina." "I want the public to remember me as they knew me: athletic, smart, and healthy.... Remember me strong and tough and quick, fleet of foot and tenacious."

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