Choosing to major in a STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) field was a no-brainer for me. I had always loved my science classes. I was developing a love for algebra and precalculus and my own grandmother, a retired chemistry professor, encouraged me wholeheartedly.
But these fields weren’t always open to women. Even after white women were allowed to study science and engineering, women of color were still barred from technical campuses and laboratories. Here are three women who not only made significant scientific advancements, but also paved the way for more women to pursue:
1. Rosalind Franklin
I like to imagine that my final words will be, “Rosalind Franklin was robbed.” Ever since I learned about this amazing woman during my high school freshman biology class, my blood has boiled whenever people mention Watson and Crick. Her story is a main reason I decided to study chemistry.
Rosalind Franklin was a physical chemistry doctoral student at Cambridge University in 1945. After receiving her doctorate, she began research at King’s College in London, where she met fellow researcher Maurice Wilkins. Franklin and Wilkins worked on separate projects, both regarding DNA. Wilkins misunderstood her role in the lab and assumed she was only an assistant rather than the head of her own project. When she developed her photographs that gave the first clear look at the structure of DNA, she showed it to James Watson and Francis Crick without Franklin’s knowledge or consent. This was the piece Watson and Crick were missing in order to determine that the structure of DNA was a double helix.
Franklin died of ovarian cancer four years before Watson, Crick, and Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize for their findings. Since Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously, Franklin was not credited on the award. Even if she had lived, it is unclear whether or not her name would have appeared on the prize. You can read more about Dr. Franklin here.
2. Dorothy Vaughan
When the movie “Hidden Figures” debuted about two years ago, I almost cried. Women in STEM fields have always been pushed to the sidelines and forgotten, and women of color even more so. To see a big-budget movie about these three amazing black women nearly moved me to tears. One of the women whose story I enjoyed the most was Dorothy Vaughan.
After earning a degree in mathematics from Wilberforce University, Vaughan worked for the National Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) before it merged with NASA in 1958. She worked as a “computer,” doing calculations by hand alongside other women of color. These women were called the “West Area Computers.” Vaughan eventually rose to become the head of the West Area Computers. This made her the first black supervisor in the history of NACA.
When the International Business Machines (IBM) Card Programmed Calculator was introduced, it didn’t take much understanding to know that it would replace human computers. Anticipating this, Vaughan taught herself FORTRAN, a new programming language. She taught it to her fellow West Area Computers, making them all indispensable during the time when NASA was trying to launch astronaut John Glenn into space. More information about Vaughan can be found on NASA’s official website.
3. Chien-Shiung Wu
Almost everyone knows about the Manhattan Project, and if not, then you know of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. One of the researchers on the project was a Chinese immigrant named Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu.
Wu moved from China to San Francisco in 1936 and earned her Ph. D. in physics from the University of California at Berkeley four years later. She moved across the country to the East Coast after graduation, looking for research jobs. She taught at top Ivy League schools, such as Princeton University and Smith College, and joined Columbia University’s Substitute Alloy Materials (SAM) lab. It was there that Wu began working on the Manhattan Project. Her contributions to the nuclear weapons team included developing a process to split the element uranium into the isotope uranium-238. She also helped improve Geiger counters, which are tools that measure the levels of nuclear radiation in a certain area.
After World War II ended, Wu began researching radioactive decay at Columbia University. While there, she was approached by two Chinese-American physicists who requested her help in disproving the “Law of Conservation of Parity.” She accepted and, using an isotope of the element cobalt, effectively disproved the hypothetical law for weak nuclear reactions.
In 1957, Wu’s team won a Nobel Prize for their work. Her contribution was not awarded until the first Wolf Prize for Physics in 1978. More of Wu’s scientific contributions can be found here.