Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World

Product Information

During the period of the Babylonian civilization, around 1200 BCE, two perfumeresses named Tapputi-Belatekallim and -ninu (first half of her name unknown) were able to obtain the essences from plants by using extraction and distillation procedures. [18] During the Egyptian dynasty, women were involved in applied chemistry, such as the making of beer and the preparation of medicinal compounds. [19] Women have been recorded to have made major contributions to alchemy. [19] Many of which lived in Alexandria around the 1st or 2nd centuries C.E., where the gnostic tradition led to female contributions being valued. The most famous of the women alchemist, Mary the Jewess, is credited with inventing several chemical instruments, including the double boiler ( bain-marie); the improvement or creation of distillation equipment of that time. [19] [20] Such distillation equipment were called kerotakis (simple still) and the tribikos (a complex distillation device). [19] Gertrude B. Elion was an American biochemist and pharmacologist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1988 for her work on the differences in biochemistry between normal human cells and pathogens. Women in the History of Science is a reader that offers a surprisingly comprehensive range of primary sources presented with additional resources that make them readily accessible for multiple readers at every level of education.' In July 1967, Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered evidence for the first known radio pulsar, which resulted in the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics for her supervisor. She was president of the Institute of Physics from October 2008 until October 2010. Where to begin? She was a very influential scientist in her own right – a protein crystallographer who won the Nobel prize at a time when there were incredibly few women doing high-level science. She had a family, several children, and kept working throughout that time. There’s a lovely passage in the book about her giving a lecture at a conference when she must have been eight months pregnant, under her maiden name, and never realised this could bother people. She was married in 1937, at a time when it was odd enough for pregnant women to be giving talks at a conference, but then to do it under your maiden name and not realise that was even odder! She was very single-minded.

A recent book titled Athena Unbound provides a life-course analysis (based on interviews and surveys) of women in science from early childhood interest, through university, graduate school and the academic workplace. The thesis of this book is that "Women face a special series of gender related barriers to entry and success in scientific careers that persist, despite recent advances". [111]Lady Jane Davy (c. 1780−1855): As described in two extracts from her contemporaries (1812 and 1815) In the US, Maria Mitchell made her name by discovering a comet in 1847, but also contributed calculations to the Nautical Almanac produced by the United States Naval Observatory. She became the first woman member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1848 and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1850.

Zoologist Anne McLaren conducted studied in genetics which led to advances in in vitro fertilization. She became the first female officer of the Royal Society in 331 years. In 1876, Elizabeth Bragg became the first woman to graduate with a civil engineering degree in the United States, from the University of California, Berkeley. [87] Early twentieth century [ edit ] Europe before World War II [ edit ]

See also: Timeline of women in science and Timeline of women in science in the United States The Young Botanist, 1835 Etheldred Benett (1775−1845): Preface to Catalogue of the Organic Remains of the County of Wiltshire (1831) Alphonse Rebière published a book in 1897, in France, entitled Les Femmes dans la science (Women in Science) which listed the contributions and publications of women in science. [82] Dorotea Bucca was another distinguished Italian physician. She held a chair of philosophy and medicine at the University of Bologna for over forty years from 1390. [28] [29] [ self-published source?] [30] [31] Other Italian women whose contributions in medicine have been recorded include Abella, Jacobina Félicie, Alessandra Giliani, Rebecca de Guarna, Margarita, Mercuriade (14th century), Constance Calenda, Calrice di Durisio (15th century), Constanza, Maria Incarnata and Thomasia de Mattio. [29] [32] In the UK, women occupied over half the places in science-related higher education courses (science, medicine, maths, computer science and engineering) in 2004–5. [138] However, gender differences varied from subject to subject: women substantially outnumbered men in biology and medicine, especially nursing, while men predominated in maths, physical sciences, computer science and engineering.