6.7 KiB
Executable file
6.7 KiB
Executable file
The big list of women who did things
Unfinished, obviously.
Last updated: 2022-10-20
Art
- Aphra Behn: one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing
- Diemoth: 12th-century recluse who transcribed at least forty-five manuscripts; notable for her "beautiful handwriting"
- Enheduanna: first known poet
- Herrad of Landsberg: 12th-century nun who wrote an early pictoral encyclopedia, Hortus deliciarum, to teach the women in her convent about the sciences of the time
- Murasaki Shikibu: wrote the first novel, The Tale of Genji
Computers
- Ada Lovelace: the first computer programmer
- Kathleen Booth: inventor of assembly language
- Margaret Hamilton: lead programmer on the Apollo project
- Grace Hopper: created the first compiler
- Susan Kare: "pioneer of pixel art"; designed many of the icons, fonts, and images for Apple, NeXT, and IBM in the 1980s
- Hedy Lamarr: invented Wi-Fi
- Ruth Teitelbaum: one of the six women who programmed ENIAC
Industry
- Tabitha Babbitt: invented the circular saw
- Katharine Burr Blodgett: invented non-reflective (invisible) glass
- Josephine Cochrane: invented first commercially successful dishwasher
- Bette Nesmith Graham: invented Liquid Paper
- Margaret Knight: invented the paper bag machine
- Stephanie Kwolek: invented Kevlar
Medicine
- June Almeida: discovered the coronavirus group of viruses
- Leila Denmark: synthesised the first vaccine for pertussis (whooping cough)
- [Rosalind Franklin](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind Franklin]: discovered the double-helix formation of DNA
- Barbara McClintock: discovered that genes can move between chromosomes
- Rita Levi-Montalcini: discovered nerve growth factor
- Andromachi Papanikolaou: key factor in the development of the pap smear test
- Candace Pert: discovered the opiate receptor in the brain
- Mildred Catherine Rebstock: first person to synthesise chloromycetin (an antibiotic)
- Trota of Salerno: first gynecologist
- Nettie Stevens: discovered that chromosomes determine sex
- Flossie Wong-Staal: proved that HIV causes AIDS
Science
- Patricia Bath: inventor of the Laserphaco Probe
- Ethel Bauer: planned lunar trajectories for the Apollo program, critical to 13's safe return
- Jocelyn Bell Burnell: discovered first pulsar
- Annie Jump Cannon: developed the first stellar classification system; classified almost 400,000 stars
- Mary Jackson: NASA's first Black female engineer
- Mae Jemison: first Black woman in space
- Katherine Johnson: mathematician crucial for the success of the first USA spaceflights
- Mary Kenner: inventor of the menstrual pad; holder of the record for the most patents awarded to a Black woman in the USA
- Inge Lehmann: discovered the Earth has a solid inner core
- Lise Meitner: discovered nuclear fission
- Mary Sherman Morgan: invented hydyne (a liquid rocket fuel)
- Cecilia Payne: discovered what the universe and sun are made of
- Clarice Phelps: part of the team that discovered element 117 (tennessine); first Black woman involved with the discovery of a chemical element
- Vera Rubin: discovered dark matter
- Seondeok of Silla: set up first astronomy tower in Asia
- Donna Strickland: winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics for the practical implementation of chirped pulse amplification
- Judy Sullivan: biomedical engineer for the Apollo 11 spaceflight
- Maria Telkes: co-built first solar-power-heated heated home with Eleanor Raymond
- Marie Tharp: mapped the floor of the Atlantic Ocean; proved the theory of continential drift
- Chien-Shiung Wu: first woman to become president of the American Physical Society; worked on the Manhattan Project and proved that parity is not conserved
- ...and many more
Social Change
- Judith Heumann: held the longest sit-in in a government building for the enactment of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (civil rights protection for disabled people)
Misc
- Marie Van Brittan Brown: co-invented home security surveillance
- Bessie Coleman: first Black woman to earn an international pilot's license; first known female aviator
- Elizabeth Magie: created the progenitor to the Monopoly board game