5 More Great Scientists and Engineers

(who also happen to be women)

#5GreatSciEng

As mentioned in the introduction this post grew (and grew - into 3 posts) from my experiences in Outreach. One of the schools at a TEAtime lecture was so enthused by the effects of freezing things with liquid nitrogen (such as tennis balls, bananas, aliens etc.) that they asked me to come to their school and freeze some more things. Having already wowed them with the 5 Greats I now take with me everywhere, I decided to prove a point and bring 5 more with me. And if I go again, I'll bring 5 more...and 5 more...and...

Ida Noddack née Tacke (1896-1978)

Her team discovered the two 'missing' elements of the periodic table in 1925 and she was reportedly the first scientist the postulate the idea of Nuclear Fission and the concepts behind it. However her story is one of great controversy and it is only recently being acknowledged how important her discoveries were - and how great a scientist she was.

Lise Meitner (1878-1968)

Partially driven by the arms races spurred by the two World Wars, Nucelar Fission was a hotly pursued subject. Lise Meitner, despite having support and funding restricted due to the fact she was a woman, was the first not only to publish the term 'Nuclear Fission' but also to come up with a working, theoretical explanation. Her contribution was downplayed, however, by Otto Hahn, the chemist in whose laboratory she ran the tests that proved her theory. Hahn went on to receive the Nobel in Chemistry for the work while Meitner was all but forgotten.

Attempts were later made to rectify this error by jointly awarding Meitner, Hahn and a third scientist, Fritz Strassman the Enrico Fermi Award and, posthumously, naming element 109 'meitnerieum' (Mt) after her.  Today she is recognised as one of the pioneering scientists of nuclear research.

Grace Hopper (1906-1992)

Rear Admiral Dr. Grace Murray Hopper was one of the first programmers of the Havard Mark I computer and a pioneer in computer science. She was the first to put forward the idea of machine-independent programming languages and also came up with the term 'de-bugging' after removing and actual moth from a computer. As well as being renowned as a technical genius, her success also lends itself to her immense marketing, political and business skills.

Hedy Lamarr (1914-200)

Hollywood actress ($3000/week MGM contract on first arriving in Hollywood)

Patent for 'secret communication system'

Bouillon cubes inventor

Not your average extracts from a CV. Yet they all belong to one person, Hedy Lamarr. Her patent (mentioned above) intended for torpedo guidance systems later became a key part of the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS technology. Her genius revolutionised telecommunications  - and her acting roles revolutionised the film industry.

Amalia Ballarino

Amalia Ballarino is leading the team behind the HTS (high temperature superconducting) Power Transmission Cables Project, as part of the LHC high luminosity upgrade at CERN. The LHC is the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator performing some of the most cutting edge experiments in particle physics today. Thanks to the team led by Ballarino during its construction, the HTS Current Lead Project reduced the power consumption of the LHC by a factor of three [1]. In 2006 she was awarded Superconductor Industry Person of the Year, the industry's most prestigious international award.

[1] A. Ballarino. Application of high temperature superconductors to accelerators.
Report, CERN, 2000. 
http://at-mel-cf.web.cern.ch/at-mel-cf/resources/HTS_for_Accelerators_PAC.pdf

***

As I find the time there will most likely be many more posts to come on this subject. I haven't even mentioned Rosalind Franklin (except briefly here), pioneer microbiologist without whose work Crick and Watson would have been unable to model DNA structure. Or Marie Curie, not only an inspiring woman but the only scientist ever, male or female, to be awarded a Nobel Prize in both Chemistry and Physics and one of only four people ever to be awarded two Nobel Prizes. Or Dorothy Hodgkin, Mary Somerville, Barbara Cartland (yes, the author - also inventor), Florence Lawrence...So watch this space. And spaces like these:

http://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/contents.html
http://www.nature.com/news/specials/women/index.html
http://www.engineergirl.org/
http://conferences.ted.com/TEDWomen2013/

In the meantime, whatever your gender, show encouragement to the women in your life who might be about to solve the next big engineering problem or make the next big scientific breakthrough. Share the news about these inspiring people and show people like Emily, here, that she's not on her own.

And if you are a woman - ever thought about a career in engineering?