In honor of International Women’s Day (IWD), we wanted to share a list by Interesting Engineering of outstanding women in STEM who have made significant contributions in science, technology, engineering, and math.

International Women’s Day (March 8) is a day of global celebration. On this day, we honor the accomplishments and contributions women have made socially, economically, culturally and politically. People from around the world celebrate this day, which also serves as call to action for accelerating gender parity. IWD began over a century ago when over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland gathered for the first ever March 8 IWD. In 2018, we see the evidence of a collective enthusiasm to keep the light of this day burning brightly to remind us of the importance that women, from all around the world, bring to our great planet!

“The story of women’s struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist not to any one organization but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights.” Gloria Steinem, world-renowned feminist, journalist and activist.

A List of Notable Women in STEM:

Hypatia

She was a prolific polymath in Roman Alexandria. Hypathia spent her life working as a Greek mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher in what was then the Byzantine Empire. If you want to get to know her life story even more, check out the film Agora.

Marie Curie

Madam Curie opened up a whole new world to humankind through her pioneering research on radioactivity. She sacrificed greatly for her contributions, leading ultimately to her death. The first woman to earn a Nobel Prize, she blazed a trail for humanity. She then climbed even higher when she earned her second Nobel Prize, the first woman to ever do that in history, as well.

Rosalind Franklin

If it weren’t for the brilliant mind of Rosalind Franklin, Watson, Crick, and Wilkins, may not have discovered the double helix structure in 1962. Through her work with X-Ray diffraction images of DNA, humankind’s understanding of DNA structure revealed itself as did the molecular structures of RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite.

Continue reading about more brilliant women in STEM...