Maria Gaetana Agnesi was born in Milan, Italy, to a wealthy family. Recognized as a child prodigy, she spoke Italian and French by age five and Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, and German by eleven. From an early age, she showed interest in mathematics and philosophy, and with her father’s encouragement, Agnesi learned with the best available tutors. At 15, her father started hosting regular gatherings of the most educated men in Bologna, and Agnesi presented and defended a series of theses on profoundly complex philosophical questions. A compilation of 191 essays based on her discussions was published in 1738. By then, 20 years old Agnesi, who became strongly religious, intended to join a convent, but her father refused since she was the oldest child and he wanted her to teach her siblings. Instead, he agreed that she could live in a semi-retirement form, with no social interactions, so that she could devote her time to learning mathematics. Her father hired the monk and professor of mathematics, Ramiro Rampinelli, to tutor her; Rampinelli introduced her to the new fields of differential and integral calculus. Around that time, Agnesi wrote a commentary on the work of the Marquis de l’Hôpital, Traité antique des sections coniques, but it was never published. In 1748, at 30, Agnesi published a two-volume book titled The Instituzioni Analitiche ad uso della gioventù italiana (Analytical Institutions for the Use of Italian Youth). In this work, she discussed integral and differential calculus and defined the cubic curve, today known as the ‘witch of Agnesi.’ Her work got recognized as the finest existing introduction to the works of the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, translated into French and English, and received praise even from Pope Benedict XIV, who appointed her professor of mathematics at the University of Bologna. Even though she never served in the position, she is considered the second woman ever to be granted a professorship at a university, Following her father’s death in 1752, Agnesi became free to devote her time to charitable work and theological studies. She worked with sick and poor people and founded several hospices. In 1783, at 65, she established a home for Milan’s elderly and moved to live there. She died at 81 and was buried in a mass grave for the poor. Read more...

Maryam Mirzakhani was born in Tehran, Iran. She aspired to become a writer while attending the girls-only Tehran Farzanegan School, but her fascination with mathematics eventually led her to become a mathematician. In her junior and senior years of high school, she was awarded the gold medal for mathematics in the Iranian National Olympiad. At 17, she scored 41 out of 42 points at the International Mathematical Olympiad and became the first Iranian woman to win first place. The following year, Mirzakhani and Roya Beheshti Zavareh became the first women to participate in the Iranian National Mathematical Olympiad, where she won the gold medal (and Zavareh the silver medal). That same year, she won two gold medals in the International Mathematical Olympiad and made history as the first Iranian to achieve a perfect score. After high school, she studied mathematics at the Sharif University of Technology and then moved to the US to continue her studies. In 2004, after receiving her Ph.D. from Harvard University, she served as a research fellow at the Clay Mathematics Institute and a professor at Princeton University. In 2009, she became a professor at Stanford University. Mirzakhani specialized in theoretical mathematics, focusing her research on moduli spaces, hyperbolic geometry, Teichmüller theory, symplectic geometry, and Ergodic theory, and identifying the geometric dynamic and complexities of curved surfaces like spheres, amoebas, and doughnut shapes. Her original work has contributed to other science fields, including theoretical physics, engineering, and material science. In 2014, she proved that the moduli space (a geometric space whose points represent algebro-geometric objects) is regular and not irregular or fractal. Later that year, she was awarded the Fields Medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics, for her “outstanding contributions to the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces.” She was the first woman and Iranian to receive the award. In 2017, at 40, she died after a long battle with breast cancer. Read more...

Grace Brewster Murray Hopper was born in New York City, New York. She was a curious child with technological tendencies who loved to dismantle alarm clocks and other household goods to see how they worked. Growing up, she attended private schools, and at 17, she started studying mathematics and physics at Vassar College. After graduating from Phi Beta Kappa, she attended Yale University, receiving her M.A degree in 1930. This same year, at 24, she married Vincent Foster Hopper, keeping the name Hopper after they divorced 15 years later. In the following year, she returned to Vassar as a math teacher while continuing her education at Yale, and in 1934 she earned a Ph.D. in mathematics, becoming one of the first women to receive a doctorate in this field. In 1941, when the US entered WW2, the 34-year-old Hopper tried to enlist in the Navi but was rejected because of her age and low weight-to-height ratio. After two years, she applied again and got accepted into the United States Navy (women) Reserve. She took a leave of absence from Vassar and was assigned to the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard University. There, she joined the staff who worked on Mark I computer – the first large-scale automatic calculator and co-authored its guidebook, A Manual of Operation for the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator. After the war, Hopper stayed at the Harvard Computation Lab for a few more years as a civilian research fellow. In 1949, at 43, she was hired by the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp. as a head programmer. In this position, she worked on the design of UNIVAC I – the first general-purpose electronic digital computer for business applications and the first large-scale electronic commercial computer. At the time, Hopper recommended developing a programing language that would use English words which later will be translated into code by the computer. After having her initiative rejected, she published a paper about it in 1952, coining the term Compiler to describe the process. It took five more years and a change of management, and in 1957, under the Sperry Rand Corp., Hopper, who was now the first director of automatic programming, oversaw the development of the Flow-Matic – the first English-like data-processing compiler. This programing language has inspired the development of COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) in 1960. Over the next decade, Hopper promoted the new language, which gradually was adapted, becoming the most used programming language in the world by the 1970s. While working in the private sector, Hopper maintained her naval career as a reservist until 1966, when she reached 60 and had to retire. It took less than a year before the Navy recalled her to active duty to help standardize its computer languages. In 1971, she retired for the second time, and again, she was asked to return in the following year. In 1973, at the age of 67, Hopper was promoted from commander to captain, and in 1983, to the rank of commodore, which two years later incorporated into rear admiral, becoming one of the Navy’s few women in this rank. Hopper, the oldest serving officer in the Navy, retired from the service for the third time in 1985 at the age of 79. Afterward, she was hired as a senior consultant to Digital Equipment Corporation, where she mainly served as a goodwill ambassador, giving lectures about computing, its early development, and future potential. In 1991, she became the first woman to be awarded the National Medal of Technology. She died the following year, at the age of 85. Read more...

Augusta Ada King was born in London, England, the only legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron with his wife, the Baroness Anne Isabella Noel Byron. Five weeks after she was born, her parents separated, and she moved with her mother to her maternal grandparents in Kirkby Mallory. Lovelace did not connect with her father until he died when she was eight years old. Growing up, her mother insisted that she studied mathematics and science, believing it would prevent her from developing a moody and unpredictable temperament like her father’s. So, from an early age, she was educated by renowned figures, such as the social reformer William Frend, the physician William King, and the astronomer and mathematician Mary Somerville. Lovelace became fascinated with numbers and engineering, designing boats and flying machines. At 17, she got introduced to Charles Babbage, a mathematician that later became known as “the father of computers.” Soon he became her mentor, and she studied advanced mathematics and helped him with his research. In the same year, she was presented at Court and became a regular and popular at aristocrat events. Two years later, she married Willia King, and when he was nominated the Earl of Lovelace, she became the Countess of Lovelace. The couple had three children. After her wedding, she continued to develop with Babbage the Analytical Engine device, an early prototype of the modern computer. In 1842, 27 years old Lovelace was asked to translate an article by the Italian Engineer Luigi Menabrea about the Analytical Engine. Her translation included an appendix note, in which she elaborated on the machine’s potential, explaining that in addition to calculating numbers, it can also create art such as music and pictures. The appendix also included a theorized engine process of instruction’s reputation, a method that is known today as Looping. Back then, her work did not get much attention, but centuries after the publication, it became recognized as the first computer algorithm, and she received the long-lost acknowledgment as the first computer programmer. Throughout her life, Lovelace developed and theorized different potential uses of the Analytical Engine. Like the mathematical model of how the brain creates thoughts and the nerves create feelings, which she called “a calculus of the nervous system.” She died at the age of 36 from uterine cancer. Read more...

Florence Nightingale was born into a British aristocratic liberal Unitarian family and grew up in England. Her parents had a liberal and advanced approach to women’s education, so she and her older sister studied mathematics, philosophy, history, literature, German, French, Latin, and Greek. Nightingale supported the ill and poor people in the village near her family’s estate from an early age. At 16, she experienced a series of “calls from god” that encouraged her to devote her life to helping the sick and become a nurse. It was an unusual decision for these days when aristocrat girls were expected to get married and be in charge of the children and household. Despite her family disapproval, Nightingale educated herself on the principles of nursing, and in 1850, at the age of 30, she enrolled in a three months training at the Institution of Protestant Deaconesses at Kaiserswerth in Germany, where she learned basic nursing skills, patient observation practices, and hospital organization methods. In 1853, 33 years old Nightingale was appointed as superintendent at the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in London. There, she worked on improving the working conditions, nursing care, and efficiency of the facility. In that same year, the Crimean War broke out, and thousands of British soldiers were sent to the Black Sea to fight the Russian Empire over the control of the Ottoman Empire. The field hospitals were founded in Scutari, but the conditions and medical supplies were not adequate to treat the wounded soldiers, and more soldiers were dying from infectious diseases they contracted in the hospital than the battle injuries that brought them there. In 1854, Sidney Herbert, the secretary of state at war for the British government, whom Nightingale met a few years earlier in her traveling in Europe, requested her to lead a delegation of nurses to Scutari in a mission to organize the hospital and tend the soldiers. On October 21st, 1854, Nightingale, with 38 nurses, left for Turkey. On their arrival at the Barrack Hospital in Scutari on November 5th, they found an establishment that was not fit for human habitation. The hospital was located on top of a cesspool that contaminated the water supply; the patients lay on stretchers throughout the hallways, soaking in their own excrement, bugs and rodents were everywhere, and basic medical and hygiene supplies, such as bandages and soap, were scarce. Nightingale and her nurses immediately began to clean and improve the sanitary conditions of the hospital. They established a bathing routine for the patients and a cleaning schedule of the clothing and linens, and they created an “invalid’s kitchen” to cook meals for patients with special dietary needs. Nightingale was also aware of the importance of psychological care, assisting the soldiers in writing letters for their families and providing intellectual stimulation and entertainment with a classroom and library. During the nights, she used to go through the dark wards with her lamp, talking to the patients and supporting them physically and mentally, for which she earned the nickname “The Lady with the Lamp.” Within six months, her methods reduced the mortality rate in the facility to merely 2%. The Crimean War ended on March 30th, 1856, and Nightingale stayed in Scutari for a few more months to close and evacuate the hospital properly. When she returned to England, she was accepted as heroin. She met with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to discuss medical care reform in the British military establishment. She presented the records, statistics, and charts she made while running the Barrack Hospital, showing how the nurses’ work improved the facility’s and soldiers’ conditions and decreased the death rate. The Queen rewarded her with an engraved brooch and a prize of $250,000 from the British government. In 1860, Nightingale used the fund to open the Nightingale School of Nursing at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London. The school educated its students on all the aspects of the profession, from physical and mental care to hygiene and management, redefined nursing as a respectable and available occupation for women outside their homes. Soon, the school model was replicated around the world. The Nightingale Fund financed other healthcare reforms, including midwives’ school at King’s College Hospital and the district nursing training program for improving home health care for the poor. During her time in Scutari, Nightingale contracted a bacterial infection known as the “Crimean fever.” The fatigue and severe chronic pain caused by the disease affected her for the rest of her life. By the age of 38, she was mainly homebound and confined to her bed, but this limitation did not prevent her from implementing her ideas on improving health care. She corresponded with health facilities from the US to Australia, sharing her knowledge, experience, and thoughts, and wrote more than 200 books, reports, and pamphlets on health-related issues. She died in her sleep at the age of 90 at her home in London. Read more...

Born as Dorothy Johnson in Kansas City, Missouri. At 19, she earned a B.A. in mathematics from Wilberforce University, a black college in Ohio. Deciding to support her family during the Great Depression years, she did not proceed to higher studies in the university and worked as a math teacher. At the age of 22, she married Howard Vaughan. When she was 33 years old, Vaughan started working as a mathematician and programmer at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)’s West Area Computing Unit – a group of African-American female mathematicians that performed manually complex computations and analyzing data for aerospace engineers. The unit’s work was essential to the success of the early US Space Program. At that time, NACA was segregated, and Vaughan and her colleagues (among them were Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson) had to use separate bathrooms and dining facilities.   At the age of 39, she got promoted to be the acting manager of the West Area Computers, and by that, became the first African-American supervisor at NACA. It took several more years until she was promoted to be the official manager. Seeing the future in computer machine, she became an expert in computer programming, teaching herself and her coworkers to program in Fortran to be prepared for the future use of computer machines. This was one of many actions to promote women in the organization. After NACA was incorporated into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the segregation abolished, and Vaughan joined the new Analysis and Computation Division. She retired in 1971 after 28 years in NACANASA, well appreciated for her scientific contribution as well as for paving the way for African-Americans in the organization.   Read more...

Born as Mary Winston in Hampton, Virginia, graduated high school with high honors and earned bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and physical science from Hampton University. After college, Jackson taught mathematics, worked as a bookkeeper and a clerk, until at the age of 30, she began working at NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) as a research mathematician, also known as a ‘human computer.’ Before incorporating into NASA, the organization had a segregation policy, and Jackson and her colleagues had to use separate bathrooms and dining facilities. Three years later, she accepted an offer to work in the Supersonic Pressure Tunnel and took graduate-level courses to become an engineer. Jackson worked as an engineer in several divisions, and after 34 years at NASA, she achieved the most senior title within the engineering department. Then, she took a demotion so she could serve as the Federal Women’s Program Manager and as the Affirmative Action Program Manager in NASA’s Equal Opportunity Specialist field, where she worked to promote women and other minorities and advance their careers at NASA. Read more...

Born as Katherine Coleman in West Virginia. From an early age, Johnson demonstrated high mathematical abilities, and by the age of 18, she earned Bachelor’s Degrees in Mathematics and French. Before she got pregnant and left school, Johnson was the first African-American woman to enroll in a graduate math program at West Virginia University. At age 35, she began to work as a human-computer at NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), with a unit of African-American women who manually performed mathematical calculations for the program’s engineers, a work that was essential to the success of the early US Space Program. At that time NACA was segregated, and Johnson and her colleagues had to work, eat, and use the restrooms that were separated by race. The segregation was banned After the organization was incorporated into NASA. Katherine Johnson was a member of the Space Task Group and was the first woman to get credit for a paper that she co-authored with a group of engineers. Until her retirement in 1986 at the age of 70, Johnson worked as an aerospace technologist at NASA, helping to send John Glenn into orbit and the first men to the moon. She died on February 24th, 2020, at the age of 101.   Read more...