List of female scientists before the 21st century

Émilie du Châtelet.

Please note: this is a historical list, intended to deal with the time period when women working in science were rare. For this reason, this list ends with the 20th century.

Antiquity

Agamede (12th century BCE), (possibly mythical) physician in Ancient Greece Aglaonike (2nd century BCE), the first woman astronomer in Ancient Greece Agnodike (4th century BCE), the first woman physician to practice legally in Athens Arete of Cyrene (5th-4th centuries BCE), natural and moral philosopher, North Africa Artemisia of Caria (c. 300 BCE), botanist[citation needed] Aspasia of Miletus (4th century BCE), philosopher and scientist Cleopatra the Alchemist - identity is unclear, but her book, The Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra, is[1] first recorded as existing in the 2nd century A.D./C.E. in Alexandria. Diotima of Mantinea (4th century BCE), philosopher and scientist, ancient Greece (sources vary as to her historicity; possibly a fictionalized character based on Aspasia of Miletus) Enheduanna (c. 2285-2250 BCE), Sumerian/Akkadian astronomer and poet Hypatia of Alexandria (370-415), mathematician and astronomer, Egypt

Lastheneia of Mantinea, (5th century BCE), one of Plato's only female students Mary the Jewess (1st or 2nd century CE), alchemist Merit Ptah (c.2700 BCE), Egyptian physician Pythias of Assos (4th century BCE), marine zoologist[citation needed] Tapputi-Belatekallim ([2] first mentioned in a clay tablet dating to 2000 BCE), Babylonian perfumer, the first person in history recorded as using a chemical process Theano (6th century BCE), philosopher, mathematician and physician

Middle Ages

Abella (14th century), Italian physician Bettina d'Andrea (d. 1335), Italian lawyer and philosopher Novella d'Andrea (d. 1333), Italian lawyer Hildegard von Bingen (1099–1179), German natural philosopher Dorotea Bocchi (fl. 1390), Italian professor of medicine Constance Calenda (15th century), Italian surgeon specialising in diseases of the eye[2][3] Constanza, Italian physician[2] Calrice di Durisio (15th century), Italian physician Jacobina Félicie (fl. 1322), Italian physician Alessandra Giliani (fl. 1318), Italian anatomist

Rebecca de Guarna (14th century), Italian physician[2][3] Heloise (12th century), French mathematician and physician Herrad of Landsberg (c.1130-1195), German/French author of the encyclopedia and technological compendium Garden of Delight Maria Incarnata, Italian surgeon[3] Margarita (14th century), Italian physician[3] Thomasia de Mattio, Italian physician[3] Mercuriade (14th century), Italian physician and surgeon[2] Empress Theodora (500-545), Byzantine philosopher and mathematician Trotula of Salerno (c. 1090), Italian physician Walborg and Karin Jota (c. 1350), Swedish officials of the court

15th to 17th centuries

Anna Åkerhjelm (1647–1693), Swedish traveller and amateur archeologist. Aphra Behn (1640–1689), British astronomer Juliana (fl. 1460), British natural historian Celia Grillo Borromeo (1684–1777), Italian natural philosopher Sophia Brahe (1556–1643), Danish astronomer and chemist Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673), natural philosopher Laura Cereta (1469–1499), humanist Isabella Cortese, (fl. 1561), Italian alchemist Maria Cunitz (1610–1664), Silesian astronomer Jeanne Dumée (fl. 1680), French astronomer

Elisabeth of Bohemia, Princess Palatine (1618–1680), German natural philosopher Beatriz Galindo (1465–1534), Spanish physician Elisabetha Koopman Hevelius (c.1646), astronomer, wife of Johannes Hevelius Hedvig Eleonora Klingenstierna, (17th century) Swedish lecturer in Latin at Linköping University Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717), naturalist Tarquinia Molza (1542–1617), Italian natural philosopher Elena Cornaro Piscopia (1646–1684), Italian mathematician and the first female PhD Jane Sharp (fl. 1671), British midwife Elinor Sneshell (fl. 1593), surgeon

18th century

Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718–1799), Italian mathematician Maria Ardinghelli (1728–1825), Italian mathematician and physicist Anna Atkins (1799–1871), British botanist Giuseppa Eleonora Barbapiccola (c. 1702-1740), natural philosopher, translator Laura Bassi (1711–1778), Italian physicist Margaret Bryan (c. 1760-1815), British natural philosopher Maria Christina Bruhn (1732–1802), Swedish inventor Elsa Beata Bunge (1734–1819), Swedish botanist Maria Medina Coeli (1764-1846), Italian physician. Émilie du Châtelet (1706–1749), French mathematician and physicist Jane Colden (1724–1766), American biologist Maria Dalle Donne (1778–1842), Italian physician Marie-Jeanne de Lalande (1760-1832), French astronomer Eva Ekeblad (1724–1786), Swedish agronomist Nicole-Reine Lepaute (1723–1792), French astronomer. Dorothea Leporin Erxleben (1715–1762), German physician Elizabeth Fulhame (fl. 1794), British chemist

Sophie Germain (1776–1831), elasticity theory, number theory Lucia Galeazzi Galvani (1743–1788), Italian physician Catherine Littlefield Greene (1755–1814), American inventor Caroline Herschel (1750–1848), German-British astronomer Josephine Kablick (1787-1863), Botanist Maria Margarethe Kirch, (1670–1720), German astronomer Marie Paulze Lavoisier (1758–1836), French chemist and illustrator Anna Morandi Manzolini (1716–1774), Italian physician and anatomist Maria Pettracini (1759-1791), Italian anatomist and physician Louise du Pierry (1746- fl 1807), French astronomer Faustina Pignatelli (d. 1785), Italian physicist Christina Roccati (1732–1797) Clotilde Tambroni (1758–1817), Italian philologist and linguistic Petronella Johanna de Timmerman (1723–1786), Dutch scentist Wang Zhenyi (1768-1797), Chinese astronomer

19th century

Lovisa Årberg (1801–1881) first woman doctor and surgeon in Sweden. Elizabeth Cary Agassiz (1822–1907), American natural historian Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836–1917), British physician Mary Anning (1799–1847), British natural historian Amalia Assur (1803-1889), Swedish dentist Hertha Marks Ayrton (1854–1923), British physicist Sara Josephine Baker (1873–1945), American doctor (child hygiene pioneer) Florence Bascom (1862–1945), American geologist Etheldred Benett (1776–1845), British geologist Isabella Bird Bishop (1831–1904), British natural historian Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910), American physician Emily Blackwell (1826–1910 ), American physician Marie Gillain Boivin (1773–1841), French midwife Elizabeth Brown (d. 1899), British astronomer Mary Whiton Calkins (1863–1930), American psychologist Annie Jump Cannon (1863–1941), American astronomer Mary Agnes Meara Chase (1869–1963), American biologist Cornelia Clapp (1849–1934), American zoologist Agnes Mary Clerke (1842–1907), British astronomer Anna Botsford Comstock (1854–1930), American natural historian Florence Cushman American astronomer Lydia Maria Adams DeWitt (1859–1928) American pathologist Amalie Dietrich (1821–1891), German natural historian Maria Dalle Donne (1778-1842), Italian physician Marie Durocher (1809–1893), Brazilian obstetrician, midwife and physician Alice Eastwood (1859–1953), American biologist Rosa Smith Eigenmann (1858–1947), American biologist Mileva Einstein-Maric (1875–1948), Serbian/Swiss physicist Ellen Eglui (19th century) Alice Cunningham Fletcher (1838–1923), American ethnologist Williamina Fleming (1857–1911), Scottish/American astronomer Rosalie Fougelberg (1841) , Swedish dentist Melanie Hahnemann (1800-1878), French homepath Hanna Hammarström (1829-1909), Swedish inventor Louise Hammarström (born 1849), Swedish chemist Johanna Hedén (1837-1912), Swedish midwife, feldsher and barber. Margaret Lindsay Murray Huggins (1848–1915), British astronomer Ida Henrietta Hyde (1857–1945), American biologist Maria Jansson (1788–1842), known as Kisamor, Swedish physician Sophia Jex-Blake (1840–1912), British physician Mary Kies (19th century), American inventor Helen Dean King (1869–1955), American biologist

Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850–1891), Russian mathematician (partial differential equations, rotating solids, Abelian functions) Christine Ladd-Franklin (1847–1930), American psychologist Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868–1921), American astronomer Jane Webb Loudon (1807–1858), British botanist Augusta Ada Byron Lovelace (1815–1851), British mathematician Margaret Eliza Maltby (1860–1944), American physicist Jane Haldimand Marcet (1769–1858), British natural philosopher Annie Russell Maunder (1868–1947), Irish astronomer Antonia Caetana Maury (1866–1952), American astronomer. Olive Thorne Miller (1831–1918), American natural historian Maria Mitchell (1818–1889), American astronomer Johanna Mestorf (1828-1909), German prehistoric archaeologist Mary Murtfeldt (1848–1913), American biologist Florence Nightingale (1820–1910), British nurse and statistician Eleanor Anne Ormerod (1828–1901), British biologist Edith Marion Patch (1876–1954), American biologist Mary Engle Pennington (1872–1952), American chemist Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps (1793–1884), American science educator Beatrix Potter (1866–1943), British mycologist Emmy Rappe (1835-1896), Swedish nurse Mary Jane Rathbun (1860–1943), American marine biologist Ellen Swallow Richards (1842–1911), American industrial and environmental chemist Emily Roebling (1844–1903), American civil engineer Clémence Royer (1830–1902), French anthropologist Ethel Sargant (1863–1918), British biologist Ellen Churchill Semple (1863–1932), American geographer Annie Lorrain Smith (1854–1937), British lichenologist and mycologist Mary Somerville (1780–1872), British physicist Anna Sundström (1785-1871), Swedish chemist Mary Treat (1830-1923) - American naturalist Nettie Stevens (1861–1912), American geneticist Lucy Hobbs Taylor (1833–1910), American dentist Jeanne Villepreux-Power (1794–1871), French marine biologist Mary Walker (1832–1919), American surgeon Margaret Floy Washburn (1871–1939), American psychologist Sarah Frances Whiting (1846–1927), American astronomer and physicist [3] Mary Watson Whitney (1847–1921), American astronomer Karolina Widerström (1856–1949), Swedish physician Anna Winlock (1857–1904), American astronomer

20th century

Faye Ajzenberg-Selove (1926- ) [4], American nuclear physicist, (2007 US National Medal of Science) Fredika Mikles Robertson, American cancer researcher Claudia Alexander, American planetary scientist E.K. Janaki Ammal (1897-1984) Indian botanist Asha Kolte, Indian Biologist (1941-)[5][6] Betsy Ancker-Johnson (1929- ) [7], American plasma physicist Caroline Austin, British molecular biologist [8] Hertha Marks Ayrton (1854–1923), British mathematician and electrical engineer (electric arcs, sand ripples, invention of several devices, geometry) [9] Zonia Baber (1862-1955), American geographer and geologist Milla Baldo-Ceolin [10], Italian particle physicist Yvonne Barr (1932- ), British virologist (co-discovery of Epstein-Barr virus) Gillian Bates, British geneticist (Huntingdon's disease) Ruth Benedict (1887–1948), American anthropologist Val Beral (1946- ), British–Australian epidemiologist Susan Blackmore (1951- ), British science writer (memetics, evolutionary theory, consciousness, parapsychology) Mary Adela Blagg (1858–1944), British astronomer Marietta Blau (1894–1970) [11], German experimental particle physicist Katharine Blodgett (1898–1979) [12], American thin-film physicist Christiane Bonnelle [13], French spectroscopist Alice Middleton Boring (1883–1955), American biologist Lera Boroditsky, American psychologist Jenny Rosenthal Bramley (1909–1997), Lithuanian-American physicist [14], [15] Harriet Brooks (1876–1933) [16], American radiation physicist Dorothy Lavinia Brown (1919–2004), American surgeon A. Catrina Bryce (1956-), Scottish laser scientist Linda B. Buck (1947- ), American neuroscientist (Nobel prize for olfactory receptors) Margaret Burbidge (1919- ), British astrophysicist [17] Jocelyn Bell Burnell (1943- ), British astrophysicist (discovery of radio pulsars) [18] Nina Byers (1930- ) [19], American physicist Annie Jump Cannon (1863–1941), American astronomer Mary L. Cartwright (1900–1998) [20] Yvette Cauchois (1908–1999) [21] Margaret Chan (1947- ), Chinese-Canadian health administrator; director of the World Health Organization Martha Chase (1927–2003), American molecular biologist Amanda Chessell computer scientist Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat (1923- ) [22], French theoretical physicist Patricia Cladis (1937- ) [23] Astrid Cleve (1875-1968), Swedish chemist Janine Connes [24] Esther Conwell (1922- ) [25] Ursula M. Cowgill, American biologist and anthropologist Suzanne Cory (1942- ), Australian immunologist/cancer researcher Heather Couper (1949- ), British astronomer (astronomy popularisation, science education) Gerty Theresa Cori (1896–1957), American biochemist (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1947) Maria Skłodowska-Curie (1867–1934), Polish-French chemist (pioneer in radiology, discovery of polonium and radium) [26] Janet Darbyshire, British epidemiologist Ingrid Daubechies, (1954- ) Belgian mathematician (Wavelets - first woman to receive the National Academy of Sciences Award in Mathematics) Eleanor Davies-Colley (1874–1934), British surgeon (first female FRCS) Cécile DeWitt-Morette (1922- ) [27] Louise Dolan [28] Nancy M. Dowdy (1938- ) [29] Mildred Dresselhaus (1930- ) [30] Helen Flanders Dunbar (1902–1959) important early figure in U.S. psychosomatic medicine.[31] Helen T. Edwards (1936- ) [32] Tatjana Ehrenfest-Afanassjewa (1876–1964) [33] Gertrude B. Elion (1918–1999), American biochemist (Nobel prize for drug development) Magda Ericson (1929- ) [34] Sandra Faber (1944- ) [35] Claire Fagin, American health-care researcher Dian Fossey (1932–1985), American zoologist [36] Rosalind Franklin (1920–1957), British physical chemist and crystallographer Ursula Franklin (1921-), Canadian metallurgist, research physicist, author and educator Judy Franz (1938- ) [37] Phyllis S. Freier (1921–1992) [38] Mary K. Gaillard (1939- ) [39] Birutė Galdikas (1946- ), German primatologist and conservationist Fanny Gates (1872–1931) [40] Kate Gleason (1865–1933), American engineer Ellen Gleditsch (1879–1968) [41] Claire F. Gmachl, American physicist Maria Goeppert-Mayer (1906–1972), German-American physicist [42] Jane Goodall (1934 - ), British biologist, primatologist [43] Gertrude Scharff Goldhaber (1911–1998) [44] Sulamith Goldhaber (1923–1965) [45] Evelyn Boyd Granville (1924- ) Susan Greenfield (1951- ), British neurophysiologist (neurophysiology of the brain, popularisation of science) Gail Hanson (1947- ) [46] Anna J. Harrison (1912–1998), American organic chemist Evans Hayward (1922- ) [47] Caroline Herzenberg (1932- ) [48] Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910–1994), British X-ray crystallographer [49] Grace Hopper (1906–1992), American computer scientist Clara Immerwahr (1870–1915), German chemist Shirley Jackson (physicist) (1946- ) [50] Bertha Swirles Jeffreys (1903–1999) [51]

Irène Joliot-Curie (1897–1956), French chemist and nuclear physicist [52] Lorella M. Jones (1943-1995), American particle physicist [53] Carole Jordan (1941- ), British solar physicist Renata Kallosh (1943- ) [54] Berta Karlik (1904–1990) [55] Bruria Kaufman (1918–2010 ) [56] Marcia Keith (1859–1950) [57] Ann Kiessling (1942- ) Margaret Kivelson (1928- ) [58] Dorothea Klumpke (1861–1942), American-born astronomer Noemie Benczer Koller (1933- ) [59] Doris Kuhlmann-Wilsdorf (1922–2010) [60] Stephanie Kwolek (1923- ), American chemist, inventor of Kevlar Elizabeth Laird (1874–1969) [61] Henrietta Leavitt, (1868–1921), American astronomer (periodicity of variable stars) Juliet Lee-Franzini (1933- ) [62] Inge Lehmann (1888–1993) [63] Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909- ), Italian neurologist (Nobel prize for growth factors) Kathleen Lonsdale (1903–1971) [64] Misha Mahowald (1963–1996), American neuroscientist [65] Margaret Eliza Maltby (1860–1944), American physicist [66] Louisa Martindale (1872–1966), British surgeon Lynn Margulis (1938- ), American biologist Barbara McClintock (1902–1992), American geneticist Anne McLaren (1927–2007), British developmental biologist Helen Megaw (1907- ) [67] Lise Meitner (1878–1968), Austrian nuclear physicist (pioneering nuclear physics, discovery of nuclear fission, protactinum, and the Auger effect) Maud Menten (1879–1960), Canadian biochemist Kirstine Meyer (1861–1941) [68] Luise Meyer-Schutzmeister (1915–1981) [69] Ann Haven Morgan (1882–1966), American zoologist Anna Nagurney Canadian-born, US operations researcher/management scientist focusing on networks Chiara Nappi, Italian American physicist Ann Nelson (1958- ), American physicist Marcia Neugebauer, [70] Gertrude Neumark (1927- ) [71] Ida Tacke Noddack (1896–1979) [72] Emmy Noether (1882–1935), German mathematician and theoretical physicist (symmetries and conservation laws) [73] Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (1942- ), German geneticist and developmental biologist (Nobel prize for homeobox genes) Daphne Osborne (1930–2006), British plant physiologist (plant hormones) Donna Osif (20th century), meteorologist [74] Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (1900–1978), British-American astronomer Marguerite Perey (1909–1975) [75] Melba Phillips (1907–2004) [76] Agnes Pockels (1862–1935) [77] P. Ya. Polubarinova-Kochina (1899- ) [78] Edith Quimby (1891–1982) [79] Helen Quinn (1943- ) [80] Lisa Randall (1962- ), American physicist F. Gwendolen Rees (1906–1994), British parasitologist Anita Roberts (1942–2006), American molecular biologist, "mother of TGF-Beta" Vera Rubin (1928- ) [81] Myriam Sarachik (1933- ) [82] Bice Sechi-Zorn (1928–1984) [83] Johanna Levelt Sengers [84] Patsy Sherman (20th century) Charlotte Moore Sitterly (1898–1990), American astronomer Hertha Sponer (1895–1968) [85] Margaret A. Stanley, British virologist and epithelial biologist Phyllis Starkey (1947- ) British biochemist and medical researcher Isabelle Stone (1868–1944) [86], American thin-film physicist and educator Ida Noddack Tacke (1896–1978), German chemist and physicist Maria Telkes (1900–1995), Hungarian-American biophysicist Jean Thomas, British biochemist (chromatin) Karen Vousden, British cancer researcher Katharine Way (1903–1995) [87] Mary Olliden Weaver (20th century), inventor Elsie Widdowson (1908–2000) [88], British nutritionist Margo Wilson (1945- ), Canadian evolutionary psychologist Fiona Wood, (1958- ), British-Australian plastic surgeon Leona Woods (1919–1986), American nuclear physicist Dorothy Wrinch (1894–1976), British mathematician and theoretical biochemist Chien-Shiung Wu (1912–1997), Chinese-American physicist (nuclear physics, (non) conservation of parity) [89] Sau Lan Wu [90], Chinese-American particle physicist Xide Xie (Hsi-teh Hsieh) (1921–2000) [91] Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (1921- ), American medical physicist (Nobel prize for radioimmunoassay) [92]

See also

• Female Nobel Prize laureates
• List of female mathematicians

Notes

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Walsh, 1911
3. ^ ^{a b c d e} Howard, 2006

References

• Herzenberg, Caroline L. 1986. Women Scientists from Antiquity to the Present: An Index. Locust Hill Press. ISBN 0-933951-01-9
• Howard S. The Hidden Giants, ch. 2, (Lulu.com; 2006) (accessed 22 August 2007)
• Howes, Ruth H. and Caroline L. Herzenberg. 1999. Their Day in the Sun: Women of the Manhattan Project. Temple University Press. ISBN 1-56639-719-7
• Ogilvie, M. B. 1986. Women in Science. The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-15031-X
• Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics website at UCLA
• Walsh JJ. 'Medieval Women Physicians' in Old Time Makers of Medicine: The Story of the Students and Teachers of the Sciences Related to Medicine During the Middle Ages, ch. 8, (Fordham University Press; 1911) (accessed 22 August 2007)

External links

• 4000 Years of Women in Science
• Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics
• Most influential British women in the history of science (selected by Royal Society panel)

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