Women have fought long and hard to be not only included, but respected in the STEM disciplines, and here are just a few of the extraordinary women who have contributed to their respective fields.
Marian Diamond
Contribution: Marian Diamond was one of the founders of modern day neuroscience and demonstration that the brain can change based on experiences and even improve with enrichment exercises. She is particularly remember the her experiments on Albert Einstein's brain which led to some of her most noteworthy breakthroughs in her discipline.
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Andrea M. Ghez
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Dr. Ghez is only the fourth woman to ever win a Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy.
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Lucy Jones
Contribution: Lucy Jones has dedicated her life to making sure that Californians are prepared when earthquakes strike. Based on her work, several southern California utilities started risk reduction projects, and FEMA used her research team's Shakeout disaster scenario as the basis for their catastrophe modeling for the region. In addition, Jones started a public education campaign and earthquake drill in conjunction with the ShakeOut scenario, and as of 2018, over 60 million people world-wide participate in those ShakeOut drills.
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Sally Ride
Contribution: Sally Ride became the first American woman, the youngest American, and the first acknowledged gay astronaut to go into space. Throughout her adult life, Ride encouraged young girls and women to pursue careers in science. She also came up with the idea for NASA's EarthKAM, which let folks take pictures of Earth using a camera on the International Space Station.
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Annie Dale Biddle Andrews
Contribution: Anne Dale Biddle Andrews was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley. Her dissertation was titled, "Constructive Theory of the Unicursal Plane Quartic by Synthetic Methods."
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Sophia Levy McDonald
Contribution: Sophia Levy MacDonald was a gifted mathematician who helped pave the way for future female mathematicians. Her calculations were so spot on that they were used to readjust the estimated mass of the planet Jupiter. She also helped those interested in teaching math at the secondary level become certified.
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Julia Robinson
Contribution: Julia Robinson was the first woman mathematician to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the first woman president of the American Mathematical Society. Her mathematical contributions provided a foundation for solving Hilbert's Tenth Problem.
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Sandy Lerner
Contribution: Sandy Lerner co-founded Cisco Systems, which manufactures and sells hardware, software, and high end technology services and products. Lerner also founded Urban Decay, a make-up line which present a myriad of different colors, rather than the pinks and reds so ubiquitous in he industry. When she was fired from Cisco Systems, she eventually decided to sell her founder's stock, and Lerner used the money from its sale to advocate for animal welfare and women's writing. She is also known for her restoration of the Chawton House owned by Jane Austen's brother.
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Contribution: In 1998, Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page rented Susan Wojcicki's garage in Menlo Park, California and developed Google's search engine there. Seeing the potential of the search engine, Wojcicki served as Google's first marketing director. She advocated for the acquisition of YouTube and is currently the CEO of YouTube. Wojcicki also advocates for more women not only in the technology industry, but in positions of power. She is also a fierce advocate for parental leave for new parents.
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