Pioneers in STEM: Highlighting Women Who Helped Shape Modern Science

Celebrated during the month of March, Women's History Month is an annual observance celebrating the accomplishments of women, both in history and contemporary society. Its roots began with the first International Women's Day on March 8th, 1911, while the first Women's History Month began after a march organized by Laura X in 1969. While women make up half of the world’s population, their contributions are too often overlooked and forgotten compared to their male counterparts. This Women's History Month, take the time to learn about these revolutionary figures that have helped shape our world into what it is today.

Fei-Fei Li (李飞飞)

Fei-Fei Li (born 3 July 1976) is a Chinese-American computer scientist known for her development of ImageNet, the dataset that enabled the rapid advancement in computer vision in the late 2010s. Her research expertise includes artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, and cognitive neuroscience. In 2023, Time Magazine listed her as one of the top 100 most influential people in AI, and on august 3rd of that same year it was announced that she would be serving on the United Nations Scientific Advisory Board.

Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Franklin (25 July 1920 – 16 April 1958) was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer. While her accomplishments concerning DNA were largely forgotten during her lifetime, her work was central to the discovery of its structure. Unfortunately, her work was taken and shared with others unbeknownst to her and was published by other researchers, granting them a Nobel prize which she should’ve earned. She earned a PHD from Cambridge in 1945 for her research on coal.

Marie Curie

Marie Curie (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934), née Skłodowska, was a Polish and naturalized French physicist and chemist who pioneered research into radioactivity. She is best known for her discovery of polonium and radium. Additionally, she is the first woman to win a Nobel prize, the first person to win a Nobel prize twice, and the only person ever to win a Nobel prize in two different scientific fields—first in physics with her husband physicist Pierre Curie and physicist Henri Becquerel for developing the theory of radioactivity (her and Pierre are also the only people to win a Nobel prize as a married couple), and second in chemistry for her discovery of polonium and radium using techniques she herself invented for isolating radioactive isotopes.