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), student of Plato
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
[edit]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[citation needed]
Herrad of Landsberg (c.1130–1195), German/French author of the encyclopedia and technological compendium Garden of Delight
Maria Incarnata, Italian surgeon[3]
Lilavati (c. 12th century), daughter featured in Bhāskara II's treatise on mathematics, who solves mathematical exercises
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[citation needed]
Trotula of Salerno (c. 1090), Italian physician
Walborg and Karin Jota (c. 1350), Swedish officials of the court
[edit]15th to 17th centuries


Anna Åkerhjelm (1647–1693), Swedish traveller and amateur archeologist.
Aphra Behn (1640–1689), British astronomer
Celia Grillo Borromeo (1684–1777), Italian natural philosopher
Sophia Brahe (1556–1643), Danish astronomer and chemist
Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673), natural philosopher
Isabella Cortese, (fl. 1561), Italian alchemist
Marie Crous (fl. 1640), French mathematician
Maria Cunitz (1610–1664), Silesian astronomer
Jeanne Dumée (fl. 1680), French astronomer
Maria Clara Eimmart (1676 - 1707), German astronomer.
Elisabeth of Bohemia, Princess Palatine (1618–1680), German natural philosopher
Beatriz Galindo (1465–1534), Spanish physician
Elisabetha Koopman Hevelius (1647–1693), astronomer, wife of Johannes Hevelius
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
[edit]18th century


Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718–1799), Italian mathematician
Maria Pellegrina Amoretti (1756 - 1787), Italian lawyer
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
Marie Marguerite Bihéron (1719-1795), French anatomist
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
Johanna Eyreinov (fl. 1785), Russian matematician
Eva Ekeblad (1724–1786), Swedish agronomist
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
Nicole-Reine Lepaute (1723–1792), French astronomer
Catherine Littlefield Greene (1755–1814), American inventor
Maria Lullin (1750-1831), Swiss entomologist.
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
Sybilla Masters (1675-1720) patent for a corn mill
Maria Pettracini (1759–1791), Italian anatomist and physician
Louise du Pierry (1746– fl. 1807), French astronomer
Faustina Pignatelli (d. 1785), Italian physicist
Eliza Luca Pinckney (1723–1766) indigo dye pioneer
Christina Roccati (1732–1797) Italian physicist
Clotilde Tambroni (1758–1817), Italian philologist and linguistic
Petronella Johanna de Timmerman (1723–1786), Dutch scientist
Wang Zhenyi (astronomer) (1768–1797), Chinese astronomer
[edit]19th century


[edit]Anthropology
Alice Cunningham Fletcher (1838–1923), American ethnologist
Johanna Mestorf (1828–1909), German prehistoric archaeologist
Clémence Royer (1830–1902), French anthropologist
Ellen Churchill Semple (1863–1932), American geographer
Praskovja Uvarova (1840–1924), Russian archaeologist
[edit]Astronomy
Annie Jump Cannon (1863–1941), American astronomer
Agnes Mary Clerke (1842–1907), British astronomer
Florence Cushman American astronomer
Williamina Fleming (1857–1911), Scottish/American astronomer
Margaret Lindsay Murray Huggins (1848–1915), British astronomer
Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868–1921), American astronomer
Annie Russell Maunder (1868–1947), Irish astronomer
Antonia Caetana Maury (1866–1952), American astronomer
Maria Mitchell (1818–1889), American astronomer
Caterina Scarpellini (1808–1873), Italian astronomer
Sarah Frances Whiting (1846–1927), American astronomer and physicist[4]
Mary Watson Whitney (1847–1921), American astronomer
Anna Winlock (1857–1904), American astronomer
[edit]Natural History or Biology
Elizabeth Cary Agassiz (1822–1907), American natural historian
Mary Anning (1799–1847), British natural historian
Isabella Bird Bishop (1831–1904), British natural historian
Mary Agnes Meara Chase (1869–1963), American biologist
Cornelia Clapp (1849–1934), American zoologist
Anna Botsford Comstock (1854–1930), American natural historian
Lydia Maria Adams DeWitt (1859–1928) American pathologist
Amalie Dietrich (1821–1891), German natural historian
Alice Eastwood (1859–1953), American biologist
Rosa Smith Eigenmann (1858–1947), American biologist
Gabrielle Howard (1876-1930), British plant physiologist
Ida Henrietta Hyde (1857–1945), American biologist
Helen Dean King (1869–1955), American biologist
Olive Thorne Miller (1831–1918), American natural historian
Mary Murtfeldt (1848–1913), American biologist
Eleanor Anne Ormerod (1828–1901), British biologist
Edith Marion Patch (1876–1954), American biologist
Beatrix Potter (1866–1943), British mycologist
Mary Jane Rathbun (1860–1943), American marine biologist
Ethel Sargant (1863–1918), British biologist
Annie Lorrain Smith (1854–1937), British lichenologist and mycologist
Nettie Stevens (1861–1912), American geneticist
Mary Treat (1830–1923), American naturalist
Jeanne Villepreux-Power (1794–1871), French marine biologist
[edit]Geology
Florence Bascom (1862–1945), American geologist
Etheldred Benett (1776–1845), British geologist
[edit]Chemistry
Louise Hammarström (1849–1917), Swedish chemist
Julia Lermontova (1846-1919), Russian chemist
Mary Engle Pennington (1872–1952), American chemist
Vera Popova (1867–1896), Russian chemist
Nadezhda Olimpievna Ziber-Shumova (d. 1914), Russian chemist
Anna Sundström (1785–1871), Swedish chemist
Ellen Swallow Richards (1842–1911), American industrial and environmental chemist
Anna Volkova (1800–1876), Russian chemist
[edit]Mathematics
Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850–1891), Russian mathematician (partial differential equations, rotating solids, Abelian functions)
Augusta Ada Byron Lovelace (1815–1851), British mathematician
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910), British statistician and nurse
[edit]Physics
Hertha Marks Ayrton (1854–1923), British physicist
Mileva Einstein-Maric (1875–1948), Serbian/Swiss physicist
Margaret Eliza Maltby (1860–1944), American physicist
Mary Somerville (1780–1872), British physicist
[edit]Psychology
Mary Whiton Calkins (1863–1930), American psychologist
Christine Ladd-Franklin (1847–1930), American psychologist
Margaret Floy Washburn (1871–1939), American psychologist
[edit]Science Education
Jane Webb Loudon (1807–1858), Writer of introductory gardening books
Jane Haldimand Marcet (1769–1858), Writer of introductory science books
Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps (1793–1884), American science educator
[edit]Inventors and Engineers
Ellen Eglui (19th century) inventor
Hanna Hammarström (1829–1909), Swedish inventor
Mary Kies (19th century), American inventor
Emily Roebling (1844–1903), American civil engineer
[edit]Medical Profession
Lovisa Årberg (1801–1881) first woman doctor and surgeon in Sweden
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836–1917), British physician
Hedda Andersson (1861-1950), Swedish physician
Amalia Assur (1803–1889), Swedish dentist
Sara Josephine Baker (1873–1945), American doctor (child hygiene pioneer)
Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910), American physician
Emily Blackwell (1826–1910 ), American physician
Marie Gillain Boivin (1773–1841), French midwife
Maria Dalle Donne (1778–1842), Italian physician
Marie Durocher (1809–1893), Brazilian obstetrician, midwife and physician
Rosalie Fougelberg (1841–1911), Swedish dentist
Johanna Hedén (1837–1912), Swedish midwife, feldsher and barber.
Maria Jansson (1788–1842), known as Kisamor, Swedish physician
Sophia Jex-Blake (1840–1912), British physician
Emmy Rappe (1835–1896), Swedish nurse
Lucy Hobbs Taylor (1833–1910), American dentist
Isala Van Diest (1842–1916), first female medical doctor and female university graduate in Belgium
Mary Walker (1832–1919), American surgeon
Karolina Widerström (1856–1949), Swedish physician
[edit]20th century


[edit]Anthropology
Ruth Benedict (1887–1948), American anthropologist
Margaret Mead (1901-1978), American anthropologist
Camilla Wedgwood (1901-1955), British/Australian anthropologist
[edit]Archeology
Zsófia Torma (1832–1899), Hungarian archeologist, paleologist, anthropologist
[edit]Astronomy
Claudia Alexander, American planetary scientist
Mary Adela Blagg (1858–1944), British astronomer
Margaret Burbidge (1919–), British astrophysicist
Jocelyn Bell Burnell (1943–), British astrophysicist (discovery of radio pulsars)
Annie Jump Cannon (1863–1941), American astronomer
Janine Connes, French astronomer[5]
Heather Couper (1949–), British astronomer (astronomy popularisation, science education)
Sandra Faber (1944–), American Astronomer[6]
Pamela Gay, American astronomer
Martha Haynes, American astronomer
Lisa Kaltenegger - Austrian/American astronomer
Dorothea Klumpke (1861–1942), American-born astronomer
Henrietta Leavitt, (1868–1921), American astronomer (periodicity of variable stars)
Carolyn Porco (1953–), American planetary scientist
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (1900–1978), British-American astronomer
Vera Rubin (1928–), American astronomer[7]
Charlotte Moore Sitterly (1898–1990), American astronomer
Jill Tarter (1944–), American astronomer
Beatrice Tinsley (1941–1981), New Zealand astronomer and cosmologist
Beth Willman, American astronomer
Maria Zuber, American planetary scientist
[edit]Biology
June Almeida (1930–2007), British virologist
E. K. Janaki Ammal (1897–1984), Indian botanist
Caroline Austin, British molecular biologist[citation needed]
Yvonne Barr (1932–), British virologist (co-discovery of Epstein-Barr virus)
Gillian Bates, British geneticist (Huntingdon's disease)
Val Beral (1946–), British–Australian epidemiologist
Alice Middleton Boring (1883–1955), American biologist
Linda B. Buck (1947–), American neuroscientist (Nobel prize for olfactory receptors)
Martha Chase (1927–2003), American molecular biologist
Ursula M. Cowgill, American biologist and anthropologist
Suzanne Cory (1942–), Australian immunologist/cancer researcher
Gerty Theresa Cori (1896–1957), American biochemist (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1947)
Janet Darbyshire, British epidemiologist
Dian Fossey (1932–1985), American zoologist [3]
Birutė Galdikas (1946–), German primatologist and conservationist
Jane Goodall (1934–), British biologist, primatologist
Susan Greenfield (1951–), British neurophysiologist (neurophysiology of the brain, popularisation of science)
Asha Kolte, Indian Biologist (1941–)[citation needed]
Misha Mahowald (1963–1996), American neuroscientist [4]
Lynn Margulis (1938–), American biologist
Barbara McClintock (1902–1992), American geneticist
Anne McLaren (1927–2007), British developmental biologist
Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909–), Italian neurologist (Nobel prize for growth factors)
Ann Haven Morgan (1882–1966), American zoologist
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (1942–), German geneticist and developmental biologist (Nobel prize for homeobox genes)
Daphne Osborne (1930–2006), British plant physiologist (plant hormones)
Theodora Lisle Prankerd (1878-1939), British botanist
Joan Beauchamp Procter (1897-1931), British zoologist (herpetologist)
F. Gwendolen Rees (1906–1994), British parasitologist
Anita Roberts (1942–2006), American molecular biologist, "mother of TGF-Beta"
Margaret A. Stanley, British virologist and epithelial biologist
Phyllis Starkey (1947–) British biochemist and medical researcher
Anna Stecksén (1870-1904), Swedish pathologist
Maria Telkes (1900–1995), Hungarian-American biophysicist
Karen Vousden, British cancer researcher
Jane C. Wright (1919-2013), American oncologist
[edit]Chemistry
Astrid Cleve (1875–1968), Swedish chemist
Maria Skłodowska-Curie (1867–1934), Polish-French chemist (pioneer in radiology, discovery of polonium and radium)
Gertrude B. Elion (1918–1999), American biochemist (Nobel prize for drug development)
Rosalind Franklin (1920–1957), British physical chemist and crystallographer
Ellen Gleditsch (1879–1968), Norwegian radiochemist[8]
Anna J. Harrison (1912–1998), American organic chemist
Clara Immerwahr (1870–1915), German chemist
Irène Joliot-Curie (1897–1956), French chemist and nuclear physicist
Stephanie Kwolek (1923–), American chemist, inventor of Kevlar
Maud Menten (1879–1960), Canadian biochemist
Ida Noddack Tacke (1896–1978), German chemist and physicist
Patsy Sherman (20th century), American chemist, co-inventor of Scotchgard
Darshan Ranganathan (1941-2001), Indian organic chemist
Jean Thomas, British biochemist (chromatin)
[edit]Geology
Zonia Baber (1862–1955), American geographer and geologist
Ethel Shakespear (1871–1946), English geologist
Marjorie Sweeting (1920–1994), British geomorphologist
[edit]Psychology
Lera Boroditsky, American psychologist
Helen Flanders Dunbar (1902–1959) important early figure in U.S. psychosomatic medicine[9]
Margo Wilson (1945–), Canadian evolutionary psychologist
Catherine G. Wolf (1947–), American psychologist and expert in human-computer interaction
Margaret Kennard (1899-1975) did pioneering research on age effects on brain damage, which produced early evidence for neuroplasticity
[edit]Mathematician or Computer Scientist
Hertha Marks Ayrton (1854–1923), British mathematician and electrical engineer (electric arcs, sand ripples, invention of several devices, geometry)
Mary L. Cartwright (1900–1998), British mathematician[10]
Amanda Chessell computer scientist
Ingrid Daubechies, (1954–) Belgian mathematician (Wavelets - first woman to receive the National Academy of Sciences Award in Mathematics)
Tatjana Ehrenfest-Afanassjewa (1876–1964), Russian/Dutch mathematician
Evelyn Boyd Granville (1924–), American mathematician, second African-American woman to get a Ph.D. in mathematics
Grace Hopper (1906–1992), American computer scientist
Rózsa Péter (1905–1977) Hungarian mathematician
Dorothy Wrinch (1894–1976), British mathematician and theoretical biochemist
[edit]Science Education
Susan Blackmore (1951–), British science writer (memetics, evolutionary theory, consciousness, parapsychology)
[edit]Engineer
Kate Gleason (1865–1933), American engineer
Frances Hugle (1927 – 1968) American engineer
Mary Olliden Weaver (20th century), inventor
[edit]Medical Professional
Dorothy Lavinia Brown (1919–2004), American surgeon
Margaret Chan (1947–), Chinese-Canadian health administrator; director of the World Health Organization
Eleanor Davies-Colley (1874–1934), British surgeon (first female FRCS)
Louisa Martindale (1872–1966), British surgeon
Fiona Wood, (1958–), British-Australian plastic surgeon
Claire Fagin, American health-care researcher
Elsie Widdowson (1908–2000), British nutritionist
[edit]Physics
Faye Ajzenberg-Selove (1926– ), American nuclear physicist, (2007 US National Medal of Science)[11]
Betsy Ancker-Johnson (1929–), American plasma physicist
Milla Baldo-Ceolin (1924–2011), Italian particle physicist[12]
Marietta Blau (1894–1970), German experimental particle physicist
Katharine Blodgett (1898–1979), American thin-film physicist[13]
Christiane Bonnelle, French spectroscopist[14]
Margrete Heiberg Bose, Danish physicist (active in Argentina from 1909)
Jenny Rosenthal Bramley (1909–1997), Lithuanian-American physicist,[15][16]
Harriet Brooks (1876–1933), American radiation physicist
A. Catrina Bryce (1956–), Scottish laser scientist
Nina Byers (1930–), American physicist[17]
Yvette Cauchois (1908–1999), French physicist[18]
Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat (1923–), French theoretical physicist[19]
Patricia Cladis (1937–), Canadian/American physicist[20]
Esther Conwell (1922–), American physicist, semiconductors[21]
Cécile DeWitt-Morette (1922–), French mathematician and physicist[22]
Louise Dolan, American mathematical physicist, theoretical particle physics and superstring theory
Nancy M. Dowdy (1938–), Nuclear physicist, arms control[23]
Mildred Dresselhaus (1930–), American physicist, graphite, graphite intercalation compounds, fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, and low dimensional thermoelectrics[24]
Helen T. Edwards (1936–), American physicist, Tevatron[25]
Magda Ericson (1929–), French nuclear physicist[26]
Ursula Franklin (1921–), Canadian metallurgist, research physicist, author and educator
Judy Franz (1938–), American physicst and educator[27]
Phyllis S. Freier (1921–1992), American astrophysicist[28]
Mary K. Gaillard (1939–), American theoretical physcist[29]
Fanny Gates (1872–1931), American physicist[30]
Claire F. Gmachl, American physicist
Maria Goeppert-Mayer (1906–1972), German-American physicist[31]
Gertrude Scharff Goldhaber (1911–1998), American nuclear physicist[32]
Sulamith Goldhaber (1923–1965), American high-energy physicist and molecular spectroscopist[33]
Gail Hanson (1947–), American high-energy physicist[34]
Margrete Heiberg Bose (1866–1952 ), Danish/Argentine physicist
Evans Hayward (1922–), American physicist[35]
Caroline Herzenberg (1932–), American physicist[36]
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910–1994), British X-ray crystallographer
Shirley Jackson (1946–), American nuclear physicist, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, first African-American woman to earn a doctorate from M.I.T.[37]
Bertha Swirles Jeffreys (1903–1999), British physicist[38]
Lorella M. Jones (1943–1995), American particle physicist [5]
Carole Jordan (1941–), British solar physicist
Renata Kallosh (1943–), Russian/American theoretical physicist[39]
Berta Karlik (1904–1990), Austrian physicist[40]
Bruria Kaufman (1918–2010 )[41]
Elizaveta Karamihailova (1897-1968), Bulgarian nuclear physicist
Marcia Keith (1859–1950)[42]
Ann Kiessling (1942–)
Margaret Kivelson (1928–)[43]
Noemie Benczer Koller (1933–)[44]
Ninni Kronberg (1874-1946), Swedish physiologist in nutrition
Doris Kuhlmann-Wilsdorf (1922–2010)[45]
Elizabeth Laird (physicist) (1874–1969)[46]
Juliet Lee-Franzini (1933–)[47]
Inge Lehmann (1888–1993)[48]
Kathleen Lonsdale (1903–1971)[49]
Margaret Eliza Maltby (1860–1944), American physicist[50]
Helen Megaw (1907–)[51]
Lise Meitner (1878–1968), Austrian nuclear physicist (pioneering nuclear physics, discovery of nuclear fission, protactinum, and the Auger effect)
Kirstine Meyer (1861–1941)[52]
Luise Meyer-Schutzmeister (1915–1981)[53]
Anna Nagurney Canadian-born, US operations researcher/management scientist focusing on networks
Chiara Nappi, Italian American physicist
Ann Nelson (1958–), American physicist
Marcia Neugebauer,[54]
Gertrude Neumark (1927–)[55]
Ida Tacke Noddack (1896–1979)[56]
Emmy Noether (1882–1935), German mathematician and theoretical physicist (symmetries and conservation laws)
Marguerite Perey (1909–1975)[57]
Melba Phillips (1907–2004)[58]
Agnes Pockels (1862–1935)[59]
[[Pelageya Polubarinova-Kochina] (1899–), Russian physicist[60]
Edith Quimby (1891–1982)[61]
Helen Quinn (1943–), American particle physicist[62]
Lisa Randall (1962–), American physicist
Myriam Sarachik (1933–), American physicist[63]
Bice Sechi-Zorn (1928–1984), Italian/American nuclear physicist[64]
Johanna Levelt Sengers, Dutch/American physicist[65]
Hertha Sponer (1895–1968), German/American physicist and chemist[66]
Isabelle Stone (1868–1944), American thin-film physicist and educator[67]
Katharine Way (1903–1995), American nuclear physicist[68]
Leona Woods (1919–1986), American nuclear physicist
Chien-Shiung Wu (1912–1997), Chinese-American physicist (nuclear physics, (non) conservation of parity)
Sau Lan Wu, Chinese-American particle physicist[69]
Xide Xie (Hsi-teh Hsieh) (1921–2000), Chinese physicist[70]
Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (1921–), American medical physicist (Nobel prize for radioimmunoassay)
[edit]See also

1842: Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) was an analyst of Charles Babbage's analytical engine and is often described as the "first computer programmer."[34]
1893: Henrietta Swan Leavitt joined the Harvard "computers", a group of women engaged in the production of astronomical data at Harvard. She was instrumental in discovery of the cepheid variable stars, which are evidence for the expansion of the universe.
1926: Grete Hermann published the foundational paper for computerized algebra. It was her doctoral thesis, titled "The Question of Finitely Many Steps in Polynomial Ideal Theory", and published in Mathematische Annalen.
1940s: American women were recruited to do ballistics calculations and program computers during WWII. Around 1943-1945, these women "computers" used a Differential Analyzer in the basement of the Moore School of Electrical Engineering to speed up their calculations, though the machine required a mechanic to be totally accurate and the women often rechecked the calculations by hand.[35]
1942: Hedy Lamarr (1913–2000), was an actress and the co-inventor of an early form of spread-spectrum broadcasting.
1943: Women worked as WREN Colossus operators during WW2 at Bletchley Park.
1943: The wives of scientists at Los Alamos were first organized as "computers" on the Manhattan Project.
1946: Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Fran Bilas, Kay McNulty, Marlyn Wescoff, and Ruth Lichterman were the original programmers of the ENIAC.
1949: Grace Hopper (1906–1992), was a United States Navy officer and the first programmer of the Harvard Mark I, known as the "Mother of COBOL". She developed the first ever compiler for an electronic computer, known as A-0.
1958: Orbital calculations for the United States' Explorer 1 satellite were solved by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's all-female "computers", many of whom were recruited out of high school.
Mechanical calculators were supplemented with logarithmic calculations performed by hand.[36][37]
1961: Dana Ulery (1938–), was the first female engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, developing real-time tracking systems using a North American Aviation Recomp II, a 40-bit word size computer.
1962: Jean E. Sammet (1928–), developed the FORMAC programming language. She was also the first to write extensively about the history and categorisation of programming languages in 1969,
and became the first female president of the Association for Computing Machinery in 1974.
1965: Mary Allen Wilkes was the first person to use a computer in a private home (in 1965) and the first developer of an operating system (LAP) for the first minicomputer (LINC).
1965: Sister Mary Kenneth Keller (1914?–1985) became the first American woman to earn a PhD in Computer Science in 1965.[38] Her thesis was titled "Inductive Inference on Computer Generated Patterns."[39]
1970?: Susan Nycum did early computer security and computer law/intellectual property for Datamation.
1972: Adele Goldberg (1945-), was one of the designers and developers of the Smalltalk language.
1972: Karen Spärck Jones (1935–2007), was a pioneer of information retrieval and natural language processing.
1972: Sandy Kurtzig founded ASK Computer Systems, an early Silicon Valley startup.
1973: Lynn Conway (1938–), led the "LSI Systems" group, and co-authored Introduction to VLSI Systems.
1975?: Phyllis Fox worked on the PORT portable mathematical/numerical library.
1978: Sophie Wilson (?), designed the Acorn Microcomputer.
1978: The Association for Women in Computing was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1978.
1979: Carol Shaw (?), was a game designer and programmer for Atari Corp. and Activision.
1980: Carla Meninsky (?), was the game designer and programmer for Atari 2600 games Dodge 'Em and Warlords.
1982?: Lorinda Cherry worked on the Writers WorkBench (wwb) for Bell Labs.
1983: Janese Swanson (with others) developed the first of the Carmen Sandiego games. She went on to found Girl Tech.
1984: Roberta Williams (1953–), did pioneering work in graphical adventure games for personal computers, particularly the King's Quest series.
1984: Susan Kare (1954–), created the icons and many of the interface elements for the original Apple Macintosh in the 1980s, and was an original employee of NeXT, working as the Creative Director.
1985: Radia Perlman (1951–), invented the Spanning Tree Protocol. She has done extensive and innovative research, particularly on encryption and networking. She received the USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007, among numerous others.
1985: Irma Wyman (~1927–), was the first Honeywell CIO.
1986: Hannah Smith was the "Girlie tipster" for CRASH (magazine).
1988: Éva Tardos (1957–), was the recipient of the Fulkerson Prize for her research on design and analysis of algorithms.
1989: Frances E. Allen (1932–), became the first female IBM Fellow in 1989. In 2006 she became the first female recipient of the ACM's Turing Award.
1992: A photograph of the all-female parody pop group Les Horribles Cernettes appears on the recently created World Wide Web, the first photo there according to media reports.[40][41]
1992–: Donna Dubinsky (1955–), CEO and co-founder of Palm, Inc., co-founder of Handspring, co-founder of Numenta, Harvard Business School's Alumni Achievement Award winner for “introducing the first successful personal digital assistant (PDA) and who is now developing a computer memory system modeled after the human brain.”
1993: Shafi Goldwasser (1958–), a theoretical computer scientist, is a two-time recipient of the Gödel Prize for research on complexity theory, cryptography and computational number theory, and the invention of zero-knowledge proofs.
1993: Barbara Liskov, together with Jeannette Wing, developed the Liskov substitution principle. Liskov was also the winner of the Turing Prize in 2008.
1994: Sally Floyd (~1953–), is most renowned for her work on Transmission Control Protocol.
1996: Xiaoyuan Tu (1967–), was the first female recipient of the ACM's Doctoral Dissertation Award.[42]
1997: Anita Borg (1949–2003), was the founding director of the Institute for Women and Technology (IWT).
1999: Marissa Mayer (1975–), was the first female engineer hired at Google, and was later named Vice President of Search Product and User Experience. She is currently the CEO of Yahoo.
2003: Ellen Spertus earned a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 1998 with the notable thesis "ParaSite: Mining the structural information on the World-Wide Web."
2004: Jeri Ellsworth (1974–), was a self-taught computer chip designer and creator of the C64 Direct-to-TV.
2005: Audrey Tang (1981–), was the initiator and leader of the Pugs project.
2005: Mary Lou Jepsen (1965–), was the founder and chief technology officer of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), and the founder of Pixel Qi.
2005: Ruchi Sanghvi became the first female engineer at Facebook.[43]
2006: Maria Klawe (1951–), was the first woman to become President of Harvey Mudd College since its founding in 1955 and was ACM president from 2002 until 2004.