Women’s History Month: Seven STEM Pioneers

Women have faced gender barriers throughout history while establishing their careers. This article spotlights seven women who overcame obstacles to make enormous contributions in science and technology. Hopefully their accomplishments will inspire women to persevere through their challenges in the workplace.  

Dorothy Vaughan (1910-2008)

Dorothy Vaughan was both a respected mathematician and in 1949, became NASA's first African-American manager. She was assigned to the segregated "West Area Computing" unit, an all-black group of female mathematicians, who were originally mandated to use separate dining and bathroom facilities. This unit made significant contributions to NASA’s space program by assisting in aircraft testing and supersonic flight research. Dorothy Vaughan became an expert FORTRAN programmer and also contributed to the Scout Launch Vehicle Program.

Dorothy Vaughan

Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997)

In the early 1940s, Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu became the first woman hired as faculty in the Physics Department at Princeton. Dr. Wu was believed to be the only person of Chinese descent who worked on the Manhattan Project – a research project initiated during World War II which produced the first nuclear weapons. She also developed improved Geiger counters for measuring nuclear radiation levels. In 1990, Dr. Wu had an asteroid named after her (2752 Wu Chien-Shiung).

Chien Shiung Wu

Asima Chatterjee (1917-2006)

Dr. Asima Chatterjee was the first woman to receive a Doctorate of Science degree from an Indian university — the Rajabazar Science College, Calcutta University. She was a pioneer in organic and medicinal chemistry who developed important anti-epileptic and anti-malarial drugs. Dr. Chatterjee published around 400 papers in national and international journals that have been cited in other journals and textbooks. Dr. Chatterjee’s research on vinca alkaloids, derived from the Madagascar periwinkle plant, has been essential for chemotherapy drug development.

Asima Chatterjee

Wangari Muta Maathai (1940-2011)

Dr. Wangari Muta Maathai became the first female professor in her home country of Kenya in 1976. In 1977, Dr. Maathia started and led the Green Belt Movement, which aims to counter deforestation. The campaign encouraged women to plant trees in their local environments and the movement spread to other African countries. In 2004, she became the first African female recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize "for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace."

Wangari Muta Maathai

Becky (Rebecca) Bace (1955-2017)

Known as "a maverick and a catalyst for women in cybersecurity", Ms. Bace was a security technology expert, author, and entrepreneur. In 1973, she was accepted to the University of Alabama at Birmingham as the only woman in engineering. She was a pioneer in cybersecurity research and an early information security program manager, who directed research in information security for the U.S. Department of Defense in the 1980s and 1990s. She spent 12 years at the National Security Agency (NSA) where she created the Computer Misuse and Anomaly Detection (CMAD) research program. Ms. Bace was a venture consultant for Trident Capital and a chief strategist of the Center for Forensics, Information Technology and Security at the University of South Alabama.

Rebecca Bace

Idelisa Bonelly (1931-)

Considered the "mother of marine conservation in the Caribbean”, Idelisa Bonelly began her studies in marine biology in New York in 1953, since there were no universities in the Dominican Republic, her native country, where this discipline was taught. Upon returning to the Dominican Republic, Mrs. Bonelly founded the first institution in the country to study marine environmental sciences with the purpose of motivating young women to become scientists. She created the first humpback whale sanctuary in the North Atlantic. Since 1984, together with a group of Dominican and international organizations, Mrs. Bonnelly has promoted the protection of the breeding grounds of humpback whales, dolphins, and manatees.

Idelisa Bonnelly

Stephanie “Steve” Shirley (1933- )

Born Vera Buchthal in 1933 in Dortmund, Germany, Stephanie “Steve” Shirley fled Nazi Europe through the Kindertransport rescue effort initiated before the start of World War II. Mrs. Shirley, an entrepreneur and philanthropist, founded a software company originally named Freelance Programmers Ltd. in 1962. In 1996, the company went public and was valued at $3 billion.  The company outsourced all its software development to women software developers who worked from home. Throughout her entrepreneurial career, she launched employment opportunities for female programmers and permitted them to continue their education and professional development.

Stephanie Shirley