Women scientists

[jinasphinx]

Last night I was calling my daughter "Marie Curie," as I often do when she tries to pour one cup into another or is fixated on stirring her milk at the dinner table. My husband asked if there was some other female scientist we could call her, one who hadn't died of radiation poisoning, and I was at a loss. I knew about Rosalind Franklin, who discovered the double-helix structure of DNA (though Watson and Crick got credit), and Augusta "Ada" Lovelace and Grace Hopper, but I couldn't think of any others. Which is pretty embarrassing for me, as a woman trained in science. So here are a few:

• Barbara McClintock, a geneticist who discovered transposable genes, and the first recipient of the MacArthur "genius" grant


• Jane Goodall, a primatologist who has spent a lifetime studying chimpanzees


• Lise Meitner, a physicist who discovered nuclear fission (though Otto Hahn got credit)


• Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive an M.D. degree

Comments

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

Hmm I'm trying to think of who I knew about when I was a kid:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmy_Noether


and then my dad's friend Ange did some famous-in-her-field stuff:

"[...] Haferd and colleague S.S. Manson published a parameter formula in 1953 (aka "stress rupture" formula) that is still used in predicting the behavior of materials subjected to the extremes of heat and pressure when a space vehicle is passing through a planet's atmosphere. The formula was critical to developing the heat shield for Apollo astronauts and later in the Shuttle. It is internationally recognized as the best method for calculating "creep" in materials at high temperatures."

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/pdf/345232main_May09Layout_lr.pdf
http://www.twi.co.uk/technical-knowledge/faqs/material-faqs/faq-what-is-the-larson-miller-parameter/

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

I did a questionnaire for teh_boy's gender awareness class, and under time pressure, couldn't even come up with Madame Curie as a famous woman scientist, and M. said "Catherine Kehl" probably shouldn't count because special knowledge.

But, we had a good talk about why I was able to fill the questionnaire with men for every role, but couldn't come up with women for more than half of them. And a secondary conversation about why M. would have done a better job. :)