Top 50 Women in Science and Technology Who Changed Research and Development History

Dinis GuardaAuthor

Mon Mar 10 2025

Throughout the centuries, women have made groundbreaking contributions to science and technology despite facing significant barriers to education, professional recognition, and equal opportunities. These remarkable women pioneers have transformed our understanding of the natural world, developed life-saving innovations, and created foundational technologies that continue to shape our modern society. Their achievements span diverse fields from astronomy and mathematics to medicine, computer science, and beyond, representing cultures and regions from around the globe.

Throughout the centuries, women have made groundbreaking contributions to science and technology despite facing significant barriers to education, professional recognition, and equal opportunities. These remarkable women pioneers have transformed our understanding of the natural world, developed life-saving innovations, and created foundational technologies that continue to shape our modern society. Their achievements span diverse fields from astronomy and mathematics to medicine, computer science, and beyond, representing cultures and regions from around the globe. Below my list / selection of 50 top women that have shifted science and technology and changed research and development of society.

top 60 women in history of science and technology, Dinis Guarda for Wisdomia.ai

Ancient World to Renaissance

Hypatia (c. 370-415 CE): Greek mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher in Alexandria, Egypt. She wrote commentaries on ancient mathematical texts and taught mathematics and astronomy to students from across the Mediterranean.
- Achievement: First well-documented woman in mathematics, preserved and improved important mathematical and astronomical texts.
- Quote: "Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all."

Aglaonice (2nd or 1st century BCE): Greek astronomer from Thessaly who could accurately predict lunar eclipses.
- Achievement: First female astronomer of ancient Greece who understood celestial mechanics well enough to predict eclipses.
- Quote: "I make the moon disappear from the sky." (attributed to her abilities, later seen as evidence of her astronomical knowledge)

Merit-Ptah (c. 2700 BCE): Ancient Egyptian physician, possibly the first named woman physician in history.
- Achievement: Rose to become "Chief Physician" in ancient Egypt.
- Quote: While no direct quotes survive, her title "Chief Physician" on her tomb inscription speaks to her authority.

Trotula of Salerno (11th-12th century): Italian medical practitioner and writer who focused on women's health.
- Achievement: Authored influential texts on women's medicine that were used in medical schools for centuries.
- Quote: "For it is especially necessary for women to help other women."

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179): German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, and medical practitioner.
- Achievement: Documented hundreds of medicinal plants and their uses, and wrote original works on natural science.
- Quote: "The earth is at the same time mother. She is mother of all that is natural, mother of all that is human."

Sophie Germain (1776-1831): French mathematician who made important contributions to number theory and elasticity theory.
- Achievement: Made groundbreaking progress on Fermat's Last Theorem with her work on "Sophie Germain primes."
- Quote: "Algebra is nothing more than geometry, in words; geometry is nothing more than algebra, in pictures."

19th Century

Mary Somerville (1780-1872): Scottish science writer and polymath, studied mathematics and astronomy.
- Achievement: Her book "On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences" (1834) revealed Neptune's existence before its discovery.
- Quote: "I was intensely ambitious to excel in something, for I felt in my own breast that women were capable of taking a higher place in creation than that assigned to them in my early days."

Mary Anning (1799-1847): English fossil collector and paleontologist who discovered many important Jurassic marine fossil beds.
- Achievement: Discovered the first complete ichthyosaur skeleton, as well as the first two plesiosaur skeletons.
- Quote: "The world has used me ill... these men of learning have sucked my brains, and made a great deal of publishing works, of which I furnished the contents, while I derived none of the advantages."

Ada Lovelace (1815-1852): English mathematician and writer, known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine.
- Achievement: Wrote the first algorithm intended to be carried out by a machine, making her the world's first computer programmer.
- Quote: "That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal; as time will show."

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910): English social reformer, statistician, and founder of modern nursing.
- Achievement: Pioneered the use of statistical graphics (particularly the polar area diagram) to communicate complex medical data.
- Quote: "I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse."

Maria Mitchell (1818-1889): American astronomer who discovered a comet and became the first female professional astronomer in the United States.
- Achievement: Discovered "Miss Mitchell's Comet" (C/1847 T1) in 1847, for which she received a gold medal from the King of Denmark.
- Quote: "We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry."

Mary Agnes Chase (1869-1963): American botanist who specialized in the study of grasses and became a leading agrostologist of her time.
- Achievement: Collected over 10,000 specimens during expeditions in Brazil and other parts of South America, many previously unknown to science.
- Quote: "The world was my garden."

Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941): American astronomer who classified hundreds of thousands of stars according to their spectra.
- Achievement: Developed the Harvard Classification System for stars, which is still used today.
- Quote: "Classification is fundamental to all sound intellectual work."

Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850-1891): Russian mathematician who made significant contributions to analysis, partial differential equations, and mechanics.
- Achievement: First woman to obtain a doctorate in mathematics, first female professor in Northern Europe.
- Quote: "It is impossible to be a mathematician without being a poet in soul."

Hertha Ayrton (1854-1923): British engineer, mathematician, physicist, and inventor who researched electric arcs and sand ripples.
- Achievement: Awarded the Hughes Medal by the Royal Society for her work on electric arcs and ripples in sand and water.
- Quote: "An error that ascribes to a man what was actually the work of a woman has more lives than a cat."
Ana Roqué de Duprey (1853-1933): Puerto Rican educator, suffragist, and astronomer who founded the first women's-only magazine in Puerto Rico.
- Achievement: Self-taught botanist and astronomer who established the College of Mayagüez, later part of the University of Puerto Rico.
- Quote: "Knowledge is the subtle essence which distinguishes a woman from an automaton."

Alice Ball (1892-1916): African American chemist who developed an injectable treatment for leprosy (known as the "Ball Method").
- Achievement: Created the most effective treatment for leprosy in the early 20th century at age 23.
- Quote: Though she left no recorded quotes, her legacy speaks through her work which saved countless lives.

Marie Curie (1867-1934): Polish-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity.
- Achievement: First person to win Nobel Prizes in two different scientific fields (Physics in 1903 and Chemistry in 1911).
- Quote: "Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."

Lise Meitner (1878-1968): Austrian-Swedish physicist who contributed to the discovery of nuclear fission.
- Achievement: Led the team that discovered nuclear fission, though her colleague Otto Hahn received the Nobel Prize.
- Quote: "Science makes people reach selflessly for truth and objectivity; it teaches people to accept reality, with wonder and admiration."

20th Century: First Half

Emmy Noether (1882-1935): German mathematician known for her groundbreaking contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics.
- Achievement: Noether's theorem, which explains the connection between symmetry and conservation laws in physics.
- Quote: "My methods are really methods of working and thinking; this is why they have crept in everywhere anonymously."

Janaki Ammal (1897-1984): Indian botanist who conducted research in cytogenetics and phytogeography.
- Achievement: Developed several hybrid crop varieties, including a sweeter sugarcane that could grow in Indian conditions.
- Quote: "Science is a human endeavor, pursued by humans with human curiosity."

Gerty Cori (1896-1957): Czech-American biochemist who became the first American woman to win a Nobel Prize in science.
- Achievement: Discovered the Cori cycle, explaining how cells convert glycogen to glucose and back, crucial for understanding metabolism.
- Quote: "With a research grant of one's own, one is free to take more risks."

Irène Joliot-Curie (1897-1956): French physicist and chemist, daughter of Marie and Pierre Curie.
- Achievement: Received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with her husband for discovering artificial radioactivity.
- Quote: "We cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individual."

Barbara McClintock (1902-1992): American scientist and cytogeneticist who discovered mobile genetic elements.
- Achievement: Discovered genetic transposition ("jumping genes"), receiving the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1983.
- Quote: "If you know you are on the right track, if you have this inner knowledge, then nobody can turn you off... no matter what they say."

Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997): Chinese-American experimental physicist who made significant contributions to nuclear physics.
- Achievement: Conducted the Wu experiment, which disproved the "law of conservation of parity" in physics.
- Quote: "It is shameful that there are so few women in science... There is a misconception in America that women scientists are all dowdy spinsters."

Maria Goeppert Mayer (1906-1972): German-born American theoretical physicist who developed the nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus.
- Achievement: Second woman to win a Nobel Prize in Physics (1963) for her discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure.
- Quote: "Mathematics began to seem too much like puzzle solving. Physics is puzzle solving, too, but of puzzles created by nature, not by the mind of man."

Dorothy Hodgkin (1910-1994): British biochemist who developed protein crystallography.
- Achievement: Determined the structure of penicillin, vitamin B12, and insulin using X-ray crystallography, winning the Nobel Prize in 1964.
- Quote: "I was captured for life by chemistry and by crystals."

Rachel Carson (1907-1964): American marine biologist and conservationist whose book "Silent Spring" advanced the global environmental movement.
- Achievement: Her work led to the nationwide ban on DDT and other pesticides and helped create the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
- Quote: "The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction."

Elsie Widdowson (1906-2000): British dietitian and nutritionist who pioneered the scientific study of nutrition.
- Achievement: Co-created the first UK food composition tables and studied the nutritional needs during wartime rationing.
- Quote: "If the scientists have the right answer in the laboratory, it is the responsibility of government to implement it."

Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000): Austrian-American actress and inventor who pioneered the technology that would form the basis for today's WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth.
- Achievement: Co-invented frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology during World War II, now foundational to modern wireless communications.
- Quote: "All creative people want to do the unexpected."

Katherine Johnson (1918-2020): African American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics at NASA were critical to the success of U.S. crewed spaceflights.
- Achievement: Calculated the trajectory for Alan Shepard's 1961 space flight and verified computer calculations for John Glenn's orbit around Earth.
- Quote: "Like what you do, and then you will do your best."

Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958): British chemist whose X-ray diffraction images of DNA were crucial to understanding DNA's structure.
- Achievement: Captured "Photo 51," the X-ray image that revealed the double-helix structure of DNA.
- Quote: "Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated."

Grace Hopper (1906-1992): American computer scientist and U.S. Navy rear admiral who was a pioneer of computer programming.
- Achievement: Developed the first compiler for a computer programming language and was instrumental in creating COBOL.
- Quote: "The most dangerous phrase in the language is, 'We've always done it this way.'"

20th Century: Second Half

Jane Goodall (1934-present): British primatologist and anthropologist considered the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees.
- Achievement: Her 60+ year study of chimpanzees in Tanzania revolutionized our understanding of primate behavior and human evolution.
- Quote: "What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make."

Valentina Tereshkova (1937-present): Soviet cosmonaut who became the first and youngest woman to fly in space.
- Achievement: Completed 48 orbits around Earth in Vostok 6 in 1963, when she was just 26 years old.
- Quote: "Once you've been in space, you appreciate how small and fragile the Earth is."

Jocelyn Bell Burnell (1943-present): Northern Irish astrophysicist who discovered the first radio pulsars.
- Achievement: Discovered pulsars as a graduate student in 1967, though her supervisor received the Nobel Prize for the breakthrough.
- Quote: "I believe it would be sensible to share it out a bit, but I'd rather see it go to people who are in need."

Vera Rubin (1928-2016): American astronomer who pioneered work on galaxy rotation rates, providing evidence for the existence of dark matter.
- Achievement: Her observations of galactic rotation proved the existence of dark matter, transforming our understanding of the universe.
- Quote: "Science progresses best when observations force us to alter our preconceptions."

Ann Tsukamoto (1952-present): American medical scientist who helped isolate human blood stem cells.
- Achievement: Co-patented a method to isolate human stem cells, essential for understanding leukemia and advancing stem cell therapies.
- Quote: "Scientific discovery often comes from looking at failures differently than others."

Flossie Wong-Staal (1947-2020): Chinese-American virologist and molecular biologist who was the first to clone HIV and determine its function.
- Achievement: First scientist to clone HIV and map its genes, vital to developing HIV tests and treatments.
- Quote: "Science should have no boundaries. No border or political issues should be a barrier."

Elizabeth Blackburn (1948-present): Australian-American molecular biologist who discovered telomerase.
- Achievement: Received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes telomeres.
- Quote: "Good science doesn't cut itself off from other ways of knowing."

Mae C. Jemison (1956-present): American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut who became the first Black woman to travel in space.
- Achievement: Served as science mission specialist on Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992.
- Quote: "Never be limited by other people's limited imaginations."

Tu Youyou (1930-present): Chinese pharmaceutical chemist and malariologist who discovered artemisinin, used to treat malaria.
- Achievement: Received the Nobel Prize for her discovery of artemisinin, which has saved millions of lives from malaria.
- Quote: "Every scientist dreams of doing something that can help the world."

Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (1947-present): French virologist who discovered HIV.
- Achievement: Identified HIV as the cause of AIDS, winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2008.
- Quote: "Science is a tool to fight stigma and discrimination."

Quarraisha Abdool Karim (1960-present): South African epidemiologist who pioneered HIV prevention research for women.
- Achievement: Demonstrated that antiretrovirals can prevent sexual transmission of HIV and developed tenofovir gel, the first HIV prevention technology for women.
- Quote: "Science can help us defeat AIDS, but outside of a test tube, you need social consensus, political commitment and people-centered responses."

Jennifer Doudna (1964-present): American biochemist known for her pioneering work in CRISPR gene editing.
- Achievement: Co-invented CRISPR-Cas9, a revolutionary gene-editing technology, winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020.
- Quote: "The beauty of science is that it's a human endeavor, so it's continually being refined and improved."

Sau Lan Wu (1940-present): Chinese American particle physicist who has played a major role in the discovery of subatomic particles.
- Achievement: Led teams that discovered the J/psi particle, the gluon, and participated in the discovery of the Higgs boson.
- Quote: "In this field, you have to be a fighter. If you want to assert yourself, you have to be a fighter."

Emmanuelle Charpentier (1968-present): French microbiologist, geneticist, and biochemist known for her work on the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system.
- Achievement: Co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a method for genome editing.
- Quote: "We scientists are like artists: what we discover helps humanity."

Fei-Fei Li (1976-present): Chinese-American computer scientist, non-profit executive, and writer who specializes in AI and computer vision.
- Achievement: Created ImageNet, a critical dataset that advanced the development of deep learning and AI systems.
- Quote: "AI is made by humans, intended to behave by humans, and, ultimately, to impact human lives and human society."

Donna Strickland (1959-present): Canadian optical physicist who became the third woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics.
- Achievement: Invented chirped pulse amplification for lasers, with applications in corrective eye surgeries and machining.
- Quote: "We need to celebrate women physicists because they're out there... I'm honored to be one of those women."

Sources and References

Books and Academic Works

Alic, M. (1986). Hypatia's Heritage: A History of Women in Science from Antiquity through the Nineteenth Century. Beacon Press.
Rossiter, M. W. (1982). Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Ogilvie, M. B. (1986). Women in Science: Antiquity through the Nineteenth Century. MIT Press.
Schiebinger, L. (1989). The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science. Harvard University Press.
Rayner-Canham, M., & Rayner-Canham, G. (1998). Women in Chemistry: Their Changing Roles from Alchemical Times to the Mid-Twentieth Century. Chemical Heritage Foundation.
Des Jardins, J. (2010). The Madame Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science. Feminist Press.
Oreskes, N. (1996). Objectivity or Heroism? On the Invisibility of Women in Science. Osiris, 11, 87-113.
Fara, P. (2004). Pandora's Breeches: Women, Science and Power in the Enlightenment. Pimlico.
Ignotofsky, R. (2016). Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World. Ten Speed Press.
Hargittai, M. (2015). Women Scientists: Reflections, Challenges, and Breaking Boundaries. Oxford University Press.

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Dinis Guarda

Author

Dinis Guarda is an author, entrepreneur, founder CEO of ztudium, Businessabc, citiesabc.com and Wisdomia.ai. Dinis is an AI leader, researcher and creator who has been building proprietary solutions based on technologies like digital twins, 3D, spatial computing, AR/VR/MR. Dinis is also an author of multiple books, including "4IR AI Blockchain Fintech IoT Reinventing a Nation" and others. Dinis has been collaborating with the likes of UN / UNITAR, UNESCO, European Space Agency, IBM, Siemens, Mastercard, and governments like USAID, and Malaysia Government to mention a few. He has been a guest lecturer at business schools such as Copenhagen Business School. Dinis is ranked as one of the most influential people and thought leaders in Thinkers360 / Rise Global’s The Artificial Intelligence Power 100, Top 10 Thought leaders in AI, smart cities, metaverse, blockchain, fintech.