Maria Mitchell was born and raised in a Quaker family in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Her father was a schoolteacher and amateur astronomer, and from a young age, Mitchell helped him operating his astronomical instruments. She attended the North Grammar school, and at 11, she transferred to the school her father founded, where she was a student and a teaching assistant. Later, she attended Cyrus Peirce’s school for young ladies, where she also worked as a teaching assistant. At 17, Mitchell established her own school, allowing nonwhite children to attend, while the local public school was segregated. Mitchell developed unconventional teaching methods, which she applied in all her teaching positions. She did not report grades or absences, she taught in small classes to individualized attention, and she incorporated mathematics and technology in every lesson. In 1836, at the age of 18, Mitchell began working as a librarian in the Nantucket Atheneum, a job she held for the next 20 years. At nights, she continued assisting her father with geographical calculations and astronomical observations for the US Coast Survey. On October 1, 1847, using a two-inch telescope, the 29 years old, Mitchell had noticed an unknown object flying through the sky, discovering the Comet 1847 VI. Later, the comet will be called “Miss Mitchell’s Comet.” Following her discovery, Mitchell gained national and international acclaim, becoming a celebrity in scientific circles with hundreds of articles written about her and receiving numerous awards, including a gold medal prize presented to her by the King of Denmark. In the following year, Mitchell became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as the first to enter the American Association for the Advancement of Science. At 31, Mitchell moved to Boston to work as an official “computer” for the US Nautical Almanac Office, becoming one of the first women to work for the federal government. In 1865, at 47, with no college education, Mitchell was appointed as the first professor of astronomy and director of the observatory at the new Vassar College. Her research varied, studying Jupiter, Saturn, and their moons, as well as nebulae and solar eclipses. Between 1868 to 1873, Mitchell and her students began a daily recording of sunspots, providing the first consistent photographs of the sun. As a professor, she broke social conventions, insisting that her female students will come to nightly observations. During her two decades at Vassar College, Mitchell and her students frequently published their findings in various academic journals. Mitchell was involved in numerous social issues throughout her life, including the anti-slavery movement and women’s suffrage. She was friends with Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and brought women’s rights activists to Vassar’s observatory to give lectures. Mitchell was a founding member and second president of the Association for the Advancement of Women (AAW) and headed a special committee on Science, promoting and analyzing women’s progress in the field. Mitchell died of brain disease at the age of age 70. Read more...

Susan La Flesche Picotte was born on the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska, the youngest of four sisters. Her father was the last recognized chief of the Omaha people; he believed the tribe should adopt whites’ traditions. Under his assumption, Picotte learned her tribe’s traditions but did not receive an Omaha name and studied at the Presbyterian mission boarding school at the reservation. When Picotte was 8, she witnessed a sick Indian woman prevented medical care from a local white doctor, who let her die because of her origin. She decided to become a physician so she could provide treatment for all the people in need. At 14, Picotte went to study at the Elizabeth Institute for Young Ladies in New Jersey. After graduation, she returned to the reservation and taught at the Quaker Mission School for two years before continuing her education at the Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia. In 1886, at the age of 21, she began her medical education at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. On March 14, 1889, when she graduated valedictorian, Picotte became the first Native American in the US to earn a medical degree. Picotte returned to her home at the Omaha Reservation and appointed the physician of the government boarding school, taking care of the student’s health and teaching them about hygiene. The school was closer than any medical facility for the reservation residences, so it became the community clinic, and Picotte provided health care for more than 1,200 people over 450 square miles. For 25 years, Picotte held a fundraising campaign for building a hospital. When it opened in 1913, it was the first hospital privately founded on a reservation. In 1893, at the age of 28, Picotte took some time off to care for her sick mother. In the following year, she married Henry Picotte. After having two sons, she returned to work while her husband took care of the children and the household, an unusual practice at the time. As the reservation’s physician, she took actions to promote health issues to prevent the spread of tuberculosis, a disease that killed hundreds in her community, including her husband. She also served on the health board of Walthill, Nebraska, chaired the state health committee of the Nebraska Federation of Women’s Clubs, and co-founded the Thurston County Medical Society. During this period, Picotte began to advocate for prohibition, speaking against white whiskey peddlers who wanted to sell alcohol to the tribe members and supported her father, the chief of the tribe, in his actions against alcohol consumption within the community. When her husband died in 1905, he left her land in South Dacota that was held in trust by the government. All the heirs, including her minor sons, had to prove competency to sell the land and receive the money. At the age of 40, Picotte found herself in a two years inheritance battle against the government. Following her success, in her free time, she helped other people fight against the system to gain control of their own land and money. After dedicating her life to the welfare of her community, Picotte was diagnosed with bone cancer. She died at the age of 50. Read more...

Rachel Carson was born on her family farm near Springdale, Pennsylvania. Since childhood, she was an enthusiastic reader and writer, and by the age of 10, she published her stories in Children’s magazines. She went to the Pennsylvania College for Women, majoring in English before switching to Biology, graduating magna cum laude. She continued her education at Johns Hopkins University, studying zoology and genetics while financing her tuition as a laboratory assistant. After receiving her Master’s degree, she joined the University’s faculty and taught for several years. In 1936, at the age of 29, Carson was the second woman to be hired in the US Bureau of Fisheries. She began her 15 years career in the bureau, writing radio scripts, brochures, and informational materials for the public. Over time, she was appointed editor and then Editor-in-Chief of all the bureau’s publications. In addition, she published articles on natural history in various magazines. In 1937, she published the article Undersea, which was the foundation of her first book, Under the Sea-Wind, published in 1941, in which she took the readers on a journey along the ocean floor. In her next book, The Sea Around Us, published in 1951, Carson provided a history of the ocean’s life. The book became a best-seller for 86 weeks, was translated into 30 languages and awarded Carson numerous accolades, including the National Book Award. Following her successes, Carson resigned from the bureau, and at the age of 46, she moved to Southport Island, Maine, to devote herself to writing. In her following book and articles, such as Help Your Child to Wonder and Our Ever-Changing Shore, Carson aimed to teach the public about the wonders of the living world. Her writing style combined scientific accuracy and lyrical prose, making research accessible to the average reader and the professional scientist. In the content, she emphasized that human beings are part of nature and the power they have on it, for better or worse. In 1962, the 55 years old Carson published her last and most known book – Silent Spring. In the book, she describes the harmful effects of pesticides on the environment, and claims that the planetary ecosystem is reaching the limits of it sustain. She used the platform to warn the public about the dangers of environmental pollution and encourage scientists and governments to take action. Carson’s book had a huge impact. It led to a nationwide ban on pesticides and sparked the environmental movement in the US and abroad, including the establishment of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In the following year, Carson was called to testify before Congress, where she suggested different policies to protect both humans and the environment. She had died at the age of 57 after a long battle against breast cancer. Read more...

Mary Anita Snook was born in Mount Carroll, Illinois. From an early age, she showed interest in machinery, making automobile and sailboats toys. When she was 16, her family moved to Ames, Iowa, where she attended Iowa State College (today Iowa State University), studying mechanical drawing, combustion engines, and maintenance of farm tractors. She spent her free time in the library, reading everything she found about aviation and government aircraft divisions. She decided to become a pilot, and in her second year in college, she applied to the Curtiss-Wright Aviation School but got rejected because of her gender. In 1917, at the age of 21, Snook was accepted to the new flying school in Davenport, Iowa, and became its first female student. The school closed soon after she began her training, and Snook applied and accepted to the Curtiss-Wright Aviation School. She put as many hours on air as she could but was not able to complete the course before civilian flights were canceled due to WW1. Until the war ended, Snook contributed her knowledge to the war effort, working as an expeditor for the British Air Ministry in Elmira, testing engines and aircraft parts before been sent to Europe. When the war ended, Snook purchased a wrecked Canuck, a Canadian training plane, and shipped it to her home in Iowa. She spent the next two years rebuilding it in her parents’ backyard. In 1920, her plane was ready, and at 24, Snook finished her solo flying training, becoming the first woman to graduate from the Curtiss-Wright Aviation School. Soon after, she was admitted into the Aero Club of America and the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI). With her new pilot’s license, she took passengers on flights over the town, charging them 15$ for a 15-minute ride, did aerial advertising and air-stunts. When winter arrived, Snook realized that Iowa weather wouldn’t enable her from flying year-round, so she dismantled the plane and shipped it to Los Angeles, California. On her arrival, she went to Bert Kinner and offered him to work as an instructor and a plane tester in his new airport, Kinner Field in LA, in return for full commercial use of the airfield. After a short trial period, she became the first woman to run a commercial airfield and the first to run her own aviation business. In her business, Snook offered aerial advertising, passenger-carrying, and flight instruction. In January 1921, a new student came to Snook, asking her to learn to fly. The student’s name was Amelia Earhart, and they flew together for more than a year. At 25, Snook married Bill Southern and gave up flying when she became pregnant, selling her business and dedicating herself to her family. In 1937, after Earhart disappeared, Snook began lecturing about her life, career, and relationship with Earhart. She died in California at age 95. Read more...

Katalin Karikó was born in Szolnok, Hungary, and grew up in a small town in Central-East Hungary. She studied biochemistry at the University of Szeged, focusing her Ph.D. on molecular biology and Messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA). A molecule that transmits genetic information and leads to a synthesis of specific proteins. In 1982, at the age of 27, Karikó completed her postdoctoral studies at the Institute of Biochemistry, Biological Research Centre of Hungary, where she examined mRNA therapy and ways it could tackle viruses. Three years later, she left communist Hungary and immigrated to the US with her husband and toddler daughter. She continued her research at Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Science, Bethesda, Maryland. In 1989, at the age of 34, Karikó began to work at the School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. By the 1990s, mRNA research improved, but the main obstacle has not yet been solved – the synthetic mRNA generated severe inflammatory reactions and could not be used in human therapy. Karikó was determined to find the solution and proposed to research mRNA to treat strokes and cystic fibrosis. She did not get research grants and got demoted to a rank of a researcher. In 1997, at the age of 42, Karikó teamed up with Drew Weissman, an immunology professor who worked, at the time, on an HIV vaccine. They realized that they need to identify which of the four nucleosides (the mRNA building blocks) in the mRNA is causing the inflammatory response and replace it with something else, so that the synthetic mRNA can be used for gene therapy. In 2005, Karikó and Weissman published their discovery in a series of articles that did not receive much attention. However, based on their articles, a Canadian stem cell biologist, Derrick Rossi, co-founded Moderna, producing mRNA-based medicines and vaccines. At the same time, Karikó and Weissman founded their own company, in which Karikó served as chief executive. In 2013, after three decades of research, Karikó received patents for modified nucleosides RNA. Soon after, the University of Pennsylvania sold the patent’s license to a third party who supported the Moderna company, and Karikó and Weissman could not apply their research on the clinical stage. At 58, Karikó realized that she could not proceed with her research at the university, so she took a job offer from a small German company named BioNTech, serving as senior vice president. In 2018, BioNTech partnered with the American pharmaceutical corporation Pfizer. In 2020, during the global COVID-19 pandemic, both Moderna and Pfizer used Karikó’s and Weissman’s mRNA technology to produce a vaccine for the virus. The mRNA-based vaccines were proved as the most potent solution to prevent the Coronavirus, and in November 2020, under Karikó’s leadership, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that their coronavirus vaccine is over 90% effective, giving hope to the world population that things will get back to normal. Read more...

Katherine Stinson was born in Fort Payne, Alabama. While growing up, her inspiration was to study music in Europe, and at the age of 20, after riding a balloon, she figured that becoming a stunt pilot is the best way to earn money for her traveling. She started taking flying lessons, first with Tony Jannus, who allowed her to join him only as a passenger, and then with Max Lillie, one of the Wright brothers pilots. At first, he refused to teach her because of her gender, but after a trial lesson, and within four hours, she was flying alone. Later on, he taught her stunt flying lessons, and in the following year, the 21 years old Stinson became the fourth woman in the US to obtain a pilot certificate. Stinson began exhibition flying, abandoning her pianist inspiration and focusing on her new career. She moved with her family to San Antonio, Texas, where she and her mother opened an aviation school, the Stinson School, and she and her sister, Marjorie, taught children to fly. Stinson gained national recognition for performing exhibition flights across the US, and in 1915, she became the first woman and fourth pilot in the US to master the “loop to loop” stunt. Flying a plane she built herself, Stinson became known as a daredevil and was asked by men pilots to teach her stunts. In 1916, Stinson was the first woman to fly to China and Japan, where the people formed a Stinson fan club, referring to her as “Air Queen.” During that period, the US Post Office started an air-mail service, and Stinson became the first woman authorized as a mail pilot, flying the first air-mail route in Texas. At 26, Stinson set a non-stop distance record, flying 606 miles from San Diego to San Francisco in 9 hours and 10 minutes. When the US joined WW1 in 1917, the government declined her request to serve as a combat pilot. Refusing not to use her skill and contribute to the war effort, she performed exhibition flights for the American Red Cross, raising $2 million. After receiving a second denial, Stinson volunteered to the Red Cross as an ambulance driver in Paris, where she contracted tuberculosis that damaged her lungs and affected her ability to fly. She returned to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she met her future husband, a fellow airman called Miguel Antonio Otero, Jr. After retiring from flying at the age of 29, she became an architect. She passed away at the age of 86. Read more...

Margaret Mead was born in Philadelphia. Her father was an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, and her mother a sociologist and feminist political activist. At 18, Mead began studying anthropology, met and married her first husband, a fellow student named Luther Cressman. After graduating, she continued her education at Columbia University, earning her Ph.D. in 1929. In 1925, Mead went to her first fieldwork in Samoa. Intrigued by the nature vs. nurture argument, she wanted to explore adolescent behavior – if this period in life is universally stressful or an outcome of cultural upbringing. She published her observations in the book, Coming of Age in Samoa, reviewing her believes in cultural determinism rather than the common conception at the time of genetic determinism. While in Samoa, she met Reo Fortune, a student from New Zealand. On her return, Mead divorced her first husband and re-married in the same year, though this marriage did not last long as well. In 1926, Mead joined the American Museum of Natural History in NYC as an assistant curator. Over the next 52 years, she served in various positions, including associate curator, curator of ethnology, and curator emeritus. Along with her work at the museum, Mead also took other responsibilities. She was a professor at Columbia University and at The New School, the Vice President of the New York Academy of Sciences, and chair of the Division of Social Sciences at Fordham University, where she founded their anthropology department. Mead was appointed president of the Society for Applied Anthropology in 1950, as president of the American Anthropological Association in 1960, and was elected as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1976, at the age of 72. In her research, Mead focused on the nonliterate peoples of Oceania, studying cultural and psychological aspects, such as natural character, culture change, and the cultural conditioning of sexual behavior. Mead is credited for changing the studying method of human culture. She was a pioneer in examining sexual behavior and claimed that personality characteristics, particularly the differences between men and women, are shaped by cultural conditioning. In her arguments, she laid the foundation of anthropological feminism and inspired the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Mead was ahead of her time not only in the anthropology field but also in her personal views. She was a loud advocate for many social issues, such as women’s rights, race relations, sexual morality, drug abuse, population control, world hunger, nuclear proliferation, and environmental pollution. She believed that motherhood and a career do not contradict. She claimed that people’s sexual orientation could change and evolve throughout life, and she was suspected to be involved in romantic relationships with women. Mead has died at the age of 77 from pancreatic cancer. Read more...

Nettie Maria Stevens was born in Cavendish, Vermont, to a middle-class family. At the age of three, after her mother’s death, her father remarried, and they moved to Westford, Massachusetts. Her father, who was a carpenter, insisted that his daughters will receive a good education, and he saved money that enabled him to send Stevens and her sister Emma to Westford Academy, where they were among the only three women to graduate between 1872-1883. At 19, she moved to Lebanon, New Hampshire, and for a year, she taught at the local high school, saving money to continue her education. In 1881 she enrolled in the State Normal School, completing four years degree in only two years, scoring the highest in her class. At the age of 35, she entered Stanford University, and after receiving her B.A. in Biology, she continued to study for an M.A. At 39, Stevens began her doctoral studies at Bryn Mawr College, focusing mainly on the regeneration of multicellular organisms and the development of sperm and eggs. After receiving her Ph.D., she was appointed to a Research Fellow position, then to a Reader in Experimental Morphology, and afterward to an Associate in Experimental Morphology, where she stayed until she died. Her Ph.D. research on regeneration led her to explore the process of sex determination. She was interested to know if sex passed through genetic inheritance. She observed mealworm beetle and discovered that the males’ reproductive cells have two chromosomes – a small one and a large one (today known as Y and X chromosomes), while females have only one (the X chromosome). Stevens concluded that the chromosome carried by the male is what determines the sex of the embryo – paring with the small chromosome becomes a male (XY), and pairing with the large chromosome becomes a female (XX). When she worked on her research, another researcher, named Edmund Wilson, made a similar observation, and at the beginning, he was the only one to receive credit for the findings. Over the next 11 years, Stevens continued her research and teachings at Bryn Mawr College as well as publishing more than 30 papers, continuing to contribute to the field of genetic sciences until her last days. She passed away at the age of 50 from breast cancer. Read more...

Bessie Coleman was born in Atlanta, Texas. Her father was of Cherokee descent, and her mother was African-American. When she was 2 years old, her family moved to Waxahachie, Texas, where her parents worked as sharecroppers. At the age of 6, she started to attend segregated, one-room school, walking 4 miles every day. At the age of 9, her father left home, and in addition to attending school, she helped to support the family by harvesting cotton and washing laundry. At 12, Coleman was granted a scholarship to the Missionary Baptist Church School, which later allowed her to enroll in the Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University in Langston, Oklahoma. After a semester, her money ran out, and she had to leave and return home. At the age of 23, Coleman moved to Chicago to live with her brothers. She attended Burnham School of Beauty Culture and worked as a manicurist. Her brothers, who served in WW1, told stories from their France experiences, where women fly airplanes. Inspired by their stories, Coleman took a second job and received sponsorship from the newspaper editor Robert S. Abbott and the banker Jesse Binga, to have enough money for aviation classes. No school in the US would receive her application, both because of her race and gender, so she learned French and moved to Paris, where she studied at the Caudron Brothers’ School of Aviation. After seven months, 29 years old Coleman became the first African-American woman and first Native- American to earn a pilot’s license as well as the first black person and first Native-America to earn an international aviation license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.   On her return to the US, Coleman received media attention but realized that she would have to become a stunt flier to earn money. Once again, she did not find any school to accept her, so she traveled to Europe, learning stunts flying and parachuting in France, the Netherland, and Germany. When she came back to the US, her popularity grew, and she became known as “Queen Bess.” She flew Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” biplanes, performing daredevil maneuvers such as loops, eights figures, and near-ground dips. Her goal was to encourage people to pursue their dreams, while her dream was to own a plane and open a flight school for African-Americans. She gave speeches throughout the country, presenting films of her tricks, and promoting aviation within the community. She refused to speak or to perform in segregated events. During a speaking tour in Orlando, Florida, she met community activists Rev. Hezakiah and Viola Hill, who invited her to live with them. She moved in and opened a beauty shop to earn enough money to buy a plane. On April 30th, 1926, Coleman took a test flight with her mechanic, William Wills. She sat in the passenger seat while he was piloting the plane. Ten minutes into the flight, it went into an unexpected dive and a spin at 3,000 feet. Coleman, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was thrown out of the plane and died immediately when hitting the ground. The plane crashed right next to her. More than 10,000 mourners attended her funeral ceremonies, led by Ida B. Wells. Although she did not achieve her dream to establish her aviation school, her pioneering achievements were the inspiration for a generation of African-Americans to become pilots. Read more...

Born in Evanston, Illinois, and grew up in Libertyville, Illinois. From an early age, Shotwell was interested in machines and vehicles, fixing things around the house and repairing her bike. Space was never her passion, but when she was thinking about what she will be as a grown-up, her mother took her to a Society of Women Engineer’s event, which inspired her to study mechanical engineering. After high school, she attended Northwestern University, from which she received a bachelor’s degree with honors and continued studying for a master’s degree in applied mathematics. Shotwell wanted to pursue a career in the automotive industry and worked for a while at Chrysler Corporation. A few years later, she decided to focus on spacecraft engineering and started working at the Aerospace Corporation research center. For ten years, she worked on thermal analysis, space shuttle integration, spacecraft design, and infrared signature target modeling. At 35, she joined Microcosm Inc, where she was the director of the space systems division. Four years later, a former colleague introduced her to Elon Mask and his new startup – SpaceX, aiming to sell reusable rockets to commercial satellite companies at the lowest possible cost. She became the vice president of business development at SpaceX, and within six years, she promoted to be the President and Chief Operating Officer. In this position, she is responsible for the company’s operations and managing customer and strategic relations, turning Musk’s visions into a viable business. Under her leadership, the company signed on a multibillion-dollar contract with NASA, and its net worth grew over $7 billion. In addition to her work at SpaceX, Shotwell is devoted to promoting STEM education programs. She also serves at the Advisory Committee of the United States Export-Import Bank as well as at the Federal Aviation Administration. She is an advisory council for Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and a fellow member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. She gives speeches at various business forums and authored dozens of papers on space-related subjects.   Read more...