Gladys West
American mathematician played a critical role in the creation of Global Positioning System (GPS)
Hertha Ayrton
British engineer,
physicist, mathematician,
pioneering inventor and suffragette
Alice Augusta Ball
Alice Augusta Ball was an African American chemist who revolutionized the treatment of leprosy.
Mabel Hubbard Bell
Muse, wife and business partner of the brilliant inventor Alexander Graham Bell, Mabel got Bell to patent his telephone, kept him grounded, and was the first woman to form and run an aviation business.
Elisabeth Mann Borgese
Academic, writer and single mother who worked tirelessly to protect the oceans; helped develop United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
Harriet Brooks
Canada's first female nuclear physicist, she pioneered the field of radioactivity research
Annie Jump Cannon
Called the "census taker of the sky,” Annie Jump Cannon was a brilliant astronomer who revolutionized the way scientists classify the stars.
Rachel Carson
Marie Curie
Physicist, chemist and twice a Nobel Prize winner, Marie's pioneering research on radioactivity made a huge contribution to finding treatments for cancer.
Gertude 'Trudy' Elion
Changed the way drugs are developed, and won the Nobel Prize for Medicine
Dr. Marie Equi
Fiercely independent Oregon physician, she was engaged in the political turmoil and social change of the late nineteenth. Openly gay, she was dedicated to the expansion of women's reproductive choices, including access to birth control and abortion; was a leading figure in public health campaigns; organized a medical response to the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and received an award from President Theodore Roosevelt for her work; was imprisoned for her anti-war activism.
Lise Meitner
Austrian physicist instrumental in the discovery of protactinium and nuclear fission
Frances Kelsey
Canadian-American pharmacologist and physician who single-handedly prevented a thalidomide crisis in the U.S.
Hedy Lamarr
STEM pioneer - portrait underway. Austrian-American actress and inventor who pioneered the technology enabled creation of WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth communication systems
Ada Lovelace
STEM pioneer - portrait underway
More....
Great Women Portraits...
Mary Sherman Morgan
STEM pioneer - U.S. rocket fuel scientist whose invention of the liquid fuel Hydyne powered the rocket that boosted the first US satellite, Explorer 1.
More Great Women of STEM...
Cecilia Payne
British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist, she discovered what stars are made of... while battling through bias and prejudice.
Great Women
Great Women Portrait Project participant Dr. Jane MacKay-Nesbitt with some portraits commissioned for Project Year 1
Wanda Robson
Activist, educator - Portrait in process
Henriette-Marie LeJeune "Granny" Ross
Her reputation as a nurse and midwife was first established in the Little Bras d’Or area of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, when she reputedly innoculated local residents and saved them from a community smallpox epidemic. Her courage, determination, energy and love of adventure, made 'Granny Ross' a legend as a pioneering woman and healer.
Muriel Siebert
Finance industry groundbreaker, first woman to hold a seat on the NYSE
Mary Ann Shadd
First Black female newspaper editor, pioneering activist and lawyer
Dr. Jennie Smillie
Medical pioneer - first Canadian female surgeon, performed the country's first major gynecological surgery
Marie Tharp
American geologist and oceanographic cartographer who co-produced the first scientific map of the Atlantic Ocean floor.
Great Women Portraits
Gladys West
American mathematician whose modeling of the shape of the Earth, and work on satellite geodesy models, helped enable the creation of the Global Positioning System.
