Evelyn Boyd Granville
In 1949, the newly minted Dr. Evelyn Boyd Granville became only the second Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics, but she didn’t realize her achievement until her sister pointed it out to her. After completing her Ph.D., Granville worked on a litany of landmark mathematical and astronomical projects. She worked on the first mass-produced computers in the world at IBM; on Project Vanguard, which aimed to launch the first artificial satellite into orbit; Project Mercury, which intended to send the first humans into space; and Project Apollo, which attempted to land the first humans on the moon. Like the ‘Hidden Figures’, Granville was a Black woman working in astronomy and math during the American civil rights era.
Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress and inventor who pioneered the technology that would one day form the basis for today’s WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth communication systems. As a natural beauty seen widely on the big screen in films like Samson and Delilah and White Cargo, society has long ignored her inventive genius. Lamarr also became the first woman to receive the Invention Convention’s Bulbie Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award. Although she died in 2000, Lamarr was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for the development of her frequency hopping technology in 2014. Such achievement has led Lamarr to be dubbed “the mother of Wi-Fi” and other wireless communications like GPS and Bluetooth.
Ruby Hirose
Biochemist and bacteriologist Ruby Hirose researched serums and antitoxins at the William S. Merrell Laboratories. In 1940, Hirose was among ten women recognized by the American Chemical Society for accomplishments in chemistry, and later made major contributions to the development of vaccines against infantile paralysis. The original caption to this photograph read: “A hay fever sufferer herself, Dr. R. Hirose, American-born Japanese girl scientist on the research staff of the Wm. S. Merrell biological laboratories, has found a way to improve the pollen extracts used to ‘desensitize’ hay fever sufferers. … The idea of treating the pollen with alum to increase its effectiveness developed while Dr. Hirose was working on alum-precipitated toxoid for protection against diphtheria.
Nora Stanton Blatch Barney
Nora Stanton Blatch was the first woman to become a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. In 1905, she became the first woman to graduate from Cornell University with a Civil Engineering degree. As the daughter of women’s rights activist Harriot Stanton Blatch, Nora inherited her mother’s passion for the cause. Along with her hectic career, she was also deeply involved with the women’s suffrage movement. She established her career and worked for the Radley Steel Construction Company and the New York Public Service Commission. She also began working as an architect while remaining active in the women’s rights movement as well, becoming the president of the Women’s Political Union in 1915.
Barbara McClintock
Barbara McClintock, (born June 16, 1902, Hartford, Connecticut, U.S. — died September 2, 1992, Huntington, New York), an American scientist whose discovery in the 1940s and ’50s of mobile genetic elements, or “Jumping Genes” won her the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1983. Many characteristics of organisms are determined by heredity– that is, by their genes–which are stored in the chromosomes inside their cells’ nuclei. Barbara McClintock studied corn’s hereditary characteristics, for example, the different colors of its kernels. She studied how these characteristics are passed down through generations and linked this to changes in the plants’ chromosomes. During the 1940s and 1950s McClintock proved that genetic elements can sometimes change position on a chromosome and that this causes nearby genes to become active or inactive.
