List of female scientists before the 20th century

Emilie du Châtelet.

Please note: this is an historical list, intended to deal with the time period when women working in science were rare. For this reason, this list ends at the 20th century.

Antiquity

• Agamede (12th century BCE), (possibly mythical) physician in Ancient Greece
• Aglaonike (2nd century BCE), the first woman astronomer in Ancient Greece
• Agnodike (4th century BCE), the first woman physician to practice legally in Athens
• Arete of Cyrene (5th-4th centuries BCE), natural and moral philosopher, North Africa
• Artemisia of Caria (c. 300 BCE), botanist
• Aspasia of Miletus (4th century BCE), philosopher and scientist
• Cleopatra the Alchemist (1st century BCE - 1st century AD)
• Diotima of Mantinea (4th century BCE), philosopher and scientist, ancient Greece (sources vary as to her historicity; possibly a fictionalized character based on Aspasia of Miletus)
• Enheduanna (c. 2285-2250 BCE), Sumerian/Akkadian astronomer and poet
• Hypatia of Alexandria (370-415), mathematician and astronomer, Egypt

• Mary the Jewess (1st or 2nd century CE), alchemist
• Merit Ptah (c.2700 BCE), Egyptian physician
• Pythias of Assos (4th century BCE), marine zoologist
• Tapputi-Belatekallim (c 1200 BCE), Babylonian chemist
• Theano (6th century BCE), philosopher, mathematician and physician

Middle Ages

• Abella (14th century), Italian physician
• Bettina d'Andrea (d. 1333), Italian lawyer and philosopher
• Novella d'Andrea (d. 1333), Italian lawyer
• Hildegard von Bingen (1099-1179), German natural philosopher
• Dorotea Bocchi (fl. 1390), Italian professor of medicine
• Constance Calenda (15th century), Italian surgeon specialising in diseases of the eye
• Constanza, Italian physician
• Calrice di Durisio (15th century), Italian physician
• Jacobina Félicie (fl. 1322), Italian physician
• Alessandra Giliani (fl. 1318), Italian anatomist

• Rebecca de Guarna (14th century), Italian physician
• Heloise (12th century), French mathematician and physician
• Herrad of Landsberg (c.1130-1195), German/French author of the encyclopedia and technological compendium Garden of Delight
• Maria Incarnata, Italian surgeon
• Margarita (14th century), Italian physician
• Thomasia de Mattio, Italian physician
• Mercuriade (14th century), Italian physician and surgeon
• Empress Theodora (500-545), Byzantine philosopher and mathematician
• Trotula of Salerno (c. 1090), Italian physician
• Walborg and Karin Jota (c. 1350), Swedish officials of the court

15th to 17th centuries

• Anna Åkerhjelm (1647-1693), Swedish traveller and amateur archeologist.
• Aphra Behn (1640-1689), British astronomer
• Juliana (fl. 1460), British natural historian
• Celia Grillo Borromeo (1684-1777), Italian natural philosopher
• Sophia Brahe (1556-1643), Danish astronomer and chemist
• Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673), natural philosopher
• Maria Cunitz (1610-1664), Polish astronomer
• Du Chatelet, Martine de Birtereau, Baroness of Beausoleil (1602-1642), French mineralogist and mining engineer
• Jeanne Dumée (fl. 1680), French astronomer
• Elisabeth of Bohemia, Princess Palatine (1618-1680), German natural philosopher
• Françoise Grigan (1646-1705), French natural philosopher

• Elisabetha Koopman Hevelius (c.1646), Polish astronomer
• Anne de La Vigne (b. 1684), French natural philosopher
• Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), naturalist
• Tarquinia Molza (1542-1617), Italian natural philosopher
• Elena Cornaro Piscopia (1646-1684), Italian mathematician and the first female PhD
• Louise-Anastasia Serment (1642-1692), French natural philosopher
• Jane Sharp (fl. 1671), British midwife
• Lorenna Strozzi (1515-1591), Italian natural philosopher

18th century

• Émilie du Châtelet (1706-1749), French mathematician and physicist
• Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799), Italian mathematician
• Maria Ardinghelli (1728-1825), Italian mathematician and physicist
• Anna Atkins (1799-1871), British botanist
• Giuseppa Eleonora Barbapiccola (c. 1702), natural philosopher, translator
• Laura Bassi (1711-1778), Italian physicist
• Margaret Bryan (b. c.1760), British natural philosopher
• Maria Christina Bruhn (1732-1802), Swedish inventor, patent for an artillery package.
• Elsa Beata Bunge (1734-1819), Swedish botanist
• Nicole-Reine Lepaute (1723-1792), French astronomer.
• Jane Colden (1724-1766), American biologist
• Gabrielle-Emilie Du Chatelet (1706-1749), French natural philosopher
• Maria Dalle Donne (1778-1842), Italian physician
• Eva Ekeblad (1724-1786), Swedish agronomist
• Dorothea Leporin Erxleben (1715-1762), German physician
• Elizabeth Fulhame (fl. 1794), British chemist
• Sophie Germain (1776-1831), elasticity theory, number theory
• Catherine Littlefield Green (1755-1814), American inventor

• Claudine Guyton de Morveau (c.1770-c.1820), French natural philosopher
• Caroline Herschel (1750-1848), German-British astronomer
• Josephine Kablick (b. 1787), Botanist
• Christine Kirch (c.1696-1782), German astronomer
• Maria Margarethe Kirch, (1670-1720), German astronomer
• Maria La Chapelle (1769-1821), French midwife
• Marie Améile Lalande (fl. 1790), French astronomer
• Marie Paulze Lavoisier (1758-1836), French chemist and illustrator
• Nichole-Reine Etable de la Brière Lepaute (1723-1788), French astronomer
• Martha Daniell Logan (1702-1779), American horticulturist
• Anna Morandi Manzolini (1716-1774), Italian physician and anatomist
• Maria Pettracini (fl. 1780), Italian anatomist and physician
• Louise du Pierry (b. 1746), French astronomer
• Martha Laurens Ramsey (1718-1811), American agronomist
• Christina Roccati (1732-1797)

19th century

• Lovisa Aarberg (19th century), Swedish physician
• Elisabeth Adams (19th century)
• Elizabeth Cary Agassiz (1822-1907), American natural historian
• Mary Albertson, American astronomer and biologist
• Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836-1917), British physician
• Mary Anning (1799-1847), British natural historian
• Amalia Assur (1803), Swedish dentist
• Hertha Marks Ayrton (1854-1923), British physicist
• Sara Josephine Baker (1873-1945), American doctor (child hygiene pioneer)
• Florence Bascom (1862-1945), American geologist
• Isabella Bird Bishop (1831-1904), British natural historian
• Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910), American physician
• Emily Blackwell (1826-1910 ), American physician
• Marie Gillain Boivin (1773-1841), French midwife
• Mary Layne Brandegee (1844-1920), American biologist
• Elizabeth Knight Britton (1858-1934), American biologist
• Mary E. Britton (19th century)
• Elizabeth Brown (d. 1899), British astronomer
• Mary Morland Buckland (d. 1857), British natural historian
• Mary Whiton Calkins (1863-1930), American psychologist
• Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941), American astronomer
• Mary Agnes Meara Chase (1869-1963), American biologist
• Cornelia Clapp (1849-1934), American zoologist
• Agnes Mary Claypole (1870-1954), American biologist
• Edith Jane Claypole (1870-1915), American biologist
• Agnes Mary Clerke (1842-1907), British astronomer
• Anna Botsford Comstock (1854-1930), American natural historian
• A. Grace Cook American astronomer
• Clara Eaton Cummings (1853-1906), American biologist
• Florence Cushman American astronomer
• Lydia Maria Adams DeWitt (1859-1928) American pathologist
• Amalie Dietrich (1821-1891), German natural historian
• Maria Dalle Donne (19th century)
• June Etta Downey (1875-1932), American psychologist
• Mary Anna Palmer Draper (1839-1914), American astronomer
• Alice Eastwood (1859-1953), American biologist
• Rosa Smith Eigenmann (1858-1947), American biologist
• Mileva Einstein-Maric (1875-1948), Serbian/Swiss physicist
• Ellen Eglui (19th century)
• Mary Orr Evershed (1867-1949), British astronomer
• Margaret Clay Ferguson (1863-1951), American biologist
• Alice Cunningham Fletcher (1838-1923), American ethnologist
• Williamina Fleming (1857-1911), Scottish/American astronomer
• Rosalie Fougelberg (1841) , Swedish dentist
• Lydia Folger Fowler (1822-1879), American physician
• Harriet Boyd Hawes (1871-1945), American archeologist
• Margaret Lindsay Murray Huggins (1848-1915), British astronomer
• Ida Henrietta Hyde (1857-1945), American biologist
• Sophia Jex-Blake (1840-1912), British physician
• Marcia Keith (1859-1950), American physicist
• Mary Kies (19th century), American inventor
• Helen Dean King (1869-1955), American biologist
• Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850–1891), Russian mathematician (partial differential equations, rotating solids, Abelian functions)
• Christine Ladd-Franklin (1847-1930), American psychologist
• Lefebre (19th century)
• Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868-1921), American astronomer
• Sarah Plumber Lemmon (1836-1923), American biologist
• Jane Webb Loudon (1807-1858), British botanist

• Augusta Ada Byron Lovelace (1815-1851), British mathematician
• Mary Horner Lyell (1808-1873), British geologist
• A. H. Manning (19th century)
• Margaret Eliza Maltby (1860-1944), American physicist
• Jane Haldimand Marcet (1769-1858), British natural philosopher
• Lillen Jane Martin (1851-1943), American psychologist
• Sarah Mather (19th century)
• Annie Russell Maunder (1868-1947), Irish astronomer
• Antonia Caetana Maury (1866-1952), American astronomer
• Carlotta Joaquina Maury (1874-1938), American paleontologist
• Olive Thorne Miller (1831-1918), American natural historian
• Maria Mitchell (1818-1889), American astronomer
• Mary Murtfeldt (1848-1913), American biologist
• Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), British nurse
• Eleanor Anne Ormerod (1828-1901), British biologist
• Edith Marion Patch (1876-1954), American biologist
• Florence Peebles (1874-1956), American biologist
• Mary Engle Pennington (1872-1952), American chemist
• Sophia Pereyaslaw (19th century)
• Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps (1793-1884), American science educator
• Beatrix Potter (1866-1943), British mycologist
• Mary Jane Rathbun (1860-1943), American marine biologist
• Ellen Swallow Richards (1842-1911), American industrial and environmental chemist
• Emily Roebling (1844-1903), American civil engineer
• Clémence Royer (1830-1902)[1]
• Caterina Scarpellini (1808- )
• Rena Florence Sabin (1871-1953), American anatomist and public health official
• Ethel Sargant (1863-1918), British biologist
• Lucy Sistare Say (1801-1885), American scientific illustrator
• Ellen Churchill Semple (1863-1932), American geographer
• Annie Lorrain Smith (1854-1937), British lichenologist and mycologist
• Mary Somerville (1780-1872), British physicist
• Nettie Stevens (1861-1912), American geneticist
• Lucy Hobbs Taylor (1833-1910), American dentist
• Jeanne Villepreux-Power (1794-1871), French marine biologist
• Mary Walker (1832-1919), American surgeon
• Margaret Floy Washburn (1871-1939), American psychologist
• Sarah Frances Whiting (1846-1927), American astronomer and physicist[2]
• Mary Watson Whitney (1847-1921), American astronomer
• Karolina Widerström (1856-1949), Swedish physician
• Fiammetta Wilson (1864-1920), British astronomer
• Anna Winlock (1857-1904), American astronomer
• Anne Sewell Young (1871-1961), American astronomer

20th century

• Faye Ajzenberg-Selove (1926- ) [3], American nuclear physicist, (2007 US National Medal of Science)
• Claudia Alexander, American planetary scientist
• Betsy Ancker-Johnson (1929- ) [4], American plasma physicist
• Caroline Austin, British molecular biologist [5]
• Hertha Marks Ayrton (1854-1923), British mathematician and electrical engineer (electric arcs, sand ripples, invention of several devices, geometry) [6]
• Milla Baldo-Ceolin [7], Italian particle physicist
• Yvonne Barr (1932- ), British virologist (co-discovery of Epstein-Barr virus)
• Gillian Bates, British geneticist (Huntingdon's disease)
• Ruth Benedict (1887-1948), American anthropologist
• Val Beral (1946- ), British–Australian epidemiologist
• Susan Blackmore (1951- ), British science writer (memetics, evolutionary theory, consciousness, parapsychology)
• Mary Adela Blagg (1858-1944), British astronomer
• Marietta Blau (1894-1970) [8], German experimental particle physicist
• Katharine Blodgett (1898-1979) [9], American thin-film physicist
• Christiane Bonnelle [10], French spectroscopist
• Alice Middleton Boring (1883-1955), American biologist
• Lera Boroditsky, American psychologist
• Jenny Rosenthal Bramley (1909-1997), Lithuanian-American physicist [11], [12]
• Harriet Brooks (1876-1933) [13], American radiation physicist
• Dorothy Lavinia Brown (1919-2004), American surgeon
• Linda B. Buck (1947- ), American neuroscientist (Nobel prize for olfactory receptors)
• Margaret Burbidge (1919- ), British astrophysicist [14]
• Jocelyn Bell Burnell (1943- ), British astrophysicist (discovery of radio pulsars) [15]
• Nina Byers (1930- ) [16], American physicist
• Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941), American astronomer
• Estella Eleanor Carothers (1883-1957), American biologist
• Mary L. Cartwright (1900-1998) [17]
• Yvette Cauchois (1908-1999) [18]
• Margaret Chan (b. 1947), Chinese-Canadian health administrator; director of the World Health Organization
• Martha Chase (1927-2003), American molecular biologist
• Amanda Chessell computer scientist
• Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat (1923- ) [19], French theoretical physicist
• Patricia Cladis (1937- ) [20]
• Janine Connes [21]
• Esther Conwell (1922- ) [22]
• Ursula M. Cowgill, American biologist and anthropologist
• Suzanne Cory (1942- ), Australian immunologist/cancer researcher
• Heather Couper (1949- ), British astronomer (astronomy popularisation, science education)
• Gerty Theresa Cori (1896–1957), American biochemist (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1947)
• Deborah Crocker (1957- )
• Maria Skłodowska-Curie (1867-1934), Polish-French chemist (pioneer in radiology, discovery of polonium and radium) [23]
• Janet Darbyshire, British epidemiologist
• Eleanor Davies-Colley (1874–1934), British surgeon (first female FRCS)
• Cecile DeWitt-Morette (1922- ) [24]
• Louise Dolan [25]
• Nancy M. Dowdy (1938- ) [26]
• Mildred Dresselhaus (1930- ) [27]
• Helen Flanders Dunbar (1902-1959) important early figure in U.S. psychosomatic medicine.[28]
• Helen T. Edwards (1936- ) [29]
• Tatjana Ehrenfest-Afanassjewa (1876-1964) [30]
• Gertrude B. Elion (1918-1999), American biochemist (Nobel prize for drug development)
• Magda Ericson (1929- ) [31]
• Sandra Faber (1944- ) [32]
• Claire Fagin, American health-care researcher
• Dian Fossey (1932-1985), American zoologist [33]
• Rosalind Franklin (1920-1957), British physical chemist and crystallographer
• Judy Franz (1938- ) [34]
• Phyllis S. Freier (1921-1992) [35]
• Mary K. Gaillard (1939- ) [36]
• Fanny Gates (1872-1931) [37]
• Kate Gleason (1865-1933), American engineer
• Ellen Gleditsch (1879-1968) [38]
• Claire F. Gmachl, American physicist
• Maria Goeppert-Mayer (1906-1972), German-American physicist [39]
• Jane Goodall (1934 - ), British biologist, primatologist [40]
• Gertrude Scharff Goldhaber (1911-1998) [41]
• Sulamith Goldhaber (1923-1965) [42]
• Evelyn Boyd Granville (1924- )
• Susan Greenfield (1951- ), British neurophysiologist (neurophysiology of the brain, popularisation of science)
• Gail Hanson (1947- ) [43]
• Anna J. Harrison (1912-1998), American organic chemist
• Evans Hayward (1922- ) [44]
• Caroline Herzenberg (1932- ) [45]
• Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910-1994), British X-ray crystallographer [46]
• Grace Hopper (1906-1992), American computer scientist
• Sethanne Howard (1944- )
• Clara Immerwahr (1870-1915), German chemist
• Shirley Jackson (physicist) (1946- ) [47]
• Bertha Swirles Jeffreys (1903-1999) [48]

• Irène Joliot-Curie (1897–1956), French chemist and nuclear physicist [49]
• Carole Jordan (1941- ), British solar physicist
• Renata Kallosh (1943- ) [50]
• Berta Karlik (1904-1990) [51]
• Bruria Kaufman (1918- ) [52]
• Marcia Keith (1859-1950) [53]
• Ann Kiessling (1942- )
• Margaret Kivelson (1928- ) [54]
• Dorothea Klumpke (1861-1942), American-born astronomer
• Noemie Benczer Koller (1933- ) [55]
• Doris Kuhlmann-Wilsdorf (1922- ) [56]
• Stephanie Kwolek (1923- ), American chemist, inventor of Kevlar
• Elizabeth Laird (1874-1969) [57]
• Henrietta Leavitt, (1868-1921), American astronomer (periodicity of variable stars)
• Juliet Lee-Franzini (1933- ) [58]
• Inge Lehmann (1888-1993) [59]
• Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909- ), Italian neurologist (Nobel prize for growth factors)
• Kathleen Lonsdale (1903-1971) [60]
• Misha Mahowald (1963-1996), American neuroscientist [61]
• Margaret E. Maltby (1860-1944), American physicist [62]
• Louisa Martindale (1872–1966), British surgeon
• Barbara McClintock (1902-1992), American geneticist
• Anne McLaren (1927-2007), British developmental biologist
• Helen Megaw (1907- ) [63]
• Lise Meitner (1878-1968), Austrian nuclear physicist (pioneering nuclear physics, discovery of nuclear fission, protactinum, and the Auger effect)
• Maud Menten (1879-1960), Canadian biochemist
• Kirstine Meyer (1861-1941) [64]
• Luise Meyer-Schutzmeister (1915-1981) [65]
• Anna Nagurney Canadian-born, US operations researcher/management scientist focusing on networks
• Chiara Nappi, Italian American physicist
• Ann Nelson (1958- ), American physicist
• Marcia Neugebauer, [66]
• Gertrude Neumark (1927- ) [67]
• Ida Tacke Noddack (1896-1979) [68]
• Emmy Noether (1882-1935), German mathematician and theoretical physicist (symmetries and conservation laws) [69]
• Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (1942- ), German geneticist and developmental biologist (Nobel prize for homeobox genes)
• Daphne Osborne (1930–2006), British plant physiologist (plant hormones)
• Donna Osif (20th century), meteorologist [70]
• Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (1900-1978), British-American astronomer
• Marguerite Perey (1909-1975) [71]
• Melba Phillips (1907- ) [72]
• Agnes Pockels (1862-1935) [73]
• P. Ya. Polubarinova-Kochina (1899- ) [74]
• Edith Quimby (1891-1982) [75]
• Helen Quinn (1943- ) [76]
• Lisa Randall (1962- ), American physicist
• F. Gwendolen Rees (1906-1994), British parasitologist
• Anita Roberts (1942-2006), American molecular biologist, "mother of TGF-Beta"
• Georgia Dwelle Rooks (20th century)
• Vera Rubin (1928- ) [77]
• Myriam Sarachik (1933- ) [78]
• Bice Sechi-Zorn (1928-1984) [79]
• Johanna Levelt Sengers [80]
• Patsy Sherman (20th century)
• Charlotte Moore Sitterly (1898-1990), American astronomer
• Hertha Sponer (1895-1968) [81]
• Margaret A. Stanley, British virologist and epithelial biologist
• Phyllis Starkey (1947- ) British biochemist and medical researcher
• Isabelle Stone (1868-1944) [82], American thin-film physicist and educator
• Ida Noddack Tacke (1896-1978), German chemist and physicist
• Maria Telkes (1900-1995), Hungarian-American biophysicist
• Jean Thomas, British biochemist (chromatin)
• Karen Vousden, British cancer researcher
• Katharine Way (1903-1995) [83]
• Mary Olliden Weaver (20th century), inventor
• Margo Wilson (1945- ), Canadian evolutionary psychologist
• Fiona Wood, (1958- ), British-Australian plastic surgeon
• Leona Woods (1919-1986), American nuclear physicist
• Dorothy Wrinch (1894-1976), British mathematician and theoretical biochemist
• Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997), Chinese-American physicist (nuclear physics, (non) conservation of parity) [84]
• Sau Lan Wu [85], Chinese-American particle physicist
• Xide Xie (Hsi-teh Hsieh) (1921-2000) [86]
• Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (1921- ), American medical physicist (Nobel prize for radioimmunoassay) [87]

See also

• Female Nobel Prize laureates
• List of female mathematicians

References

• Herzenberg, Caroline L. 1986. Women Scientists from Antiquity to the Present: An Index. Locust Hill Press. ISBN 0-933951-01-9
• Howard S. The Hidden Giants, ch. 2, (Lulu.com; 2006) (accessed 22 August 2007)
• Howes, Ruth H. and Caroline L. Herzenberg. 1999. Their Day in the Sun: Women of the Manhattan Project. Temple University Press. ISBN 1-56639-719-7
• Ogilvie, M. B. 1986. Women in Science. The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-15031-X
• Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics website at UCLA
• Walsh JJ. 'Medieval Women Physicians' in Old Time Makers of Medicine: The Story of the Students and Teachers of the Sciences Related to Medicine During the Middle Ages, ch. 8, (Fordham University Press; 1911) (accessed 22 August 2007)

External links

• 4000 Years of Women in Science
• Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics

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