The Halcyonite

By Defne ’23

On Saturday, 11 February, we will be celebrating the 8th International Day for Women and Girls in Science. 

In light of this occasion, we have asked women in science from the Halcyon community to share inspirational women in STEM they think you should know about! So, here’s our list…

Amelia (Grade 12):

“Ada Lovelace and Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin”

Ada Lovelace is “considered to be the first programmer” by many. During the 19th century, she wrote on Babbage’s analytical engine, what was planned to be a mechanical computer, although it was never built at her time. Her notes are said to have inspired Alan Turing’s computer work in the 1940s.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was a 20th century astronomer who worked on variable stars. She was the one “who discovered that stars are mostly made of hydrogen and helium”. However, she was told by Henry Noris Russel that she should refrain from sharing this conclusion, because he thought that the composition of stars would be more similar to planet Earth. She also suggested that stars could be categorised based on their temperature. Despite writing such an influential doctoral thesis at Harvard, she was not awarded a PhD by this university because of her gender, and instead received her diploma from Radcliffe College.

Luiza (Grade 12):

“Mary Anning”

Mary Anning was one of the pioneers of British palaeontology in the 19th century. “She discovered many important fossils and identified new species. She found the first complete ichthyosaurus” and the first complete plesiosaurus. She “was a very successful palaeontologist (even though her peers didn’t let her join the club)” Despite her groundbreaking work, those who wrote about her discoveries did not credit her at the time and she was not admitted into the Geological Society of London because she was a woman.

Ms Jenkins:
“Jane Goodall, Jennifer Doudna, Jane Cooke Wright, Rosalind Franklin”

“These are just some amazing women who have had a role in identifying, understanding and manipulating DNA.”

Jane Goodall worked on chimpanzees in Tanzania and she transformed how we view their behaviour today. She was the one who discovered that chimpanzees were not in fact herbivores, but omnivores, as well as that they are able to build simple tools and have social interactions. Beyond her discoveries, Goodall is also iconic in her conservation efforts to protect species and indigenous communities. 

Jennifer Doudna is a biochemist who works on RNA structure and function as enzymes and in protein complexes. She won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for one of the most revolutionary discoveries in contemporary molecular biology: the CRISPR-cas9 enzyme, which allows scientists to target and modify specific genes. 

Jane Cooke Wright worked on chemical treatments for cancer, and was highly involved in increasing effective chemotherapies. In 1951, she showed the efficacy of methotrexate in treating breast cancer. Moreover, she was a strong advocate for increasing access to the new cancer therapies, becoming the only female founding member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. In 1967, she was the highest ranked African American woman at a nationally recognised institution and in 1971, she became the first woman to be elected the president of the New York Cancer Society. 

Rosalind Franklin was a biophysicist who produced the first clear X-ray crystallography image of the DNA molecule and contributed highly to the discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure by recording the numbers necessary to mathematically deduce it. Unfortunately, she was excluded from the Nobel Prize awarded to Watson, Crick and Wilkins after her death. You can read more about Franklin’s contributions to DNA research here.

Ms Fritz:
“Dr Eugenia Cheng” 

“Dr Eugenia Cheng is a mathematician who is passionate about breaking down barriers for women in mathematics and communicating the relevance and beauty of mathematics generally. She is  a professor of mathematics, but also a concert pianist and scientist in residence at the Art institute of Chicago – her work demonstrates the power of interdisciplinary thinking.” You can watch her TED talk where she uses abstract maths to understand privilege in society here.

Dr Cheng has also written many popular mathematics books linking into her interdisciplinary approach to pure maths, notably The Art of Logic and How to Bake Pi. 

Sasha (Grade 11)

“Chien-Shiung Wu”

Chien-Shiung Wu contributed to many fields across science. She “went to UC Berkeley and was considered the ‘First Lady of Physics’. She joined a project during World War II and helped to develop the atomic bomb”  by working on a process to separate uranium into U-253 and U-258 isotopes. “Her two male colleagues she developed it with got a Nobel Prize in 1957, but she went unrecognised for her contributions.” After this, she also researched the molecular changes in the mutated haemoglobin structure that causes sickle cell anaemia.