Ebook: Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science-and the World

Fifty-two insightful and inspiring profiles of history's brightest female scientists and mathematicians. In March 2013, the New York Times published an obituary for Yvonne Brill. It began: She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job, and took eight years off from work to raise three children. It wasn't until the second paragraph that readers discovered why the Times had devoted several hundred words to her life: Brill was a brilliant rocket scientist who invented a propulsion system to keep communications satellites in orbit, and had recently been awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. The obituary--and consequent outcry in response--highlighted not only that women in science are often treated with less respect than their male counterparts, but also that there are still so few women in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and medicine). This is in part because they are lacking the critical encouragement and support they need to help them advance. Headstrong delivers a powerful and entertaining response to the question: Who are the role models for today's female scientists? Covering Nobel Prize winners and major innovators, as well as lesser-known but hugely significant scientists who influence our every day, these engaging profiles span centuries of courageous thinkers and illustrate how each subject's ideas developed, from their first moment of engagement with science through the research and discovery for which they're best known. Finally, it gives these 52 lives the attention and respect they deserve--with the aim to encourage and inspire a new generation of girls to put on their lab coats.;The earth and stars -- Mary Putnam Jacobi (1842) -- Maria Mitchell (1818) -- Annie Jump Cannon (1863) -- Inge Lehmann (1888) -- Marie Tharp (1920) -- Yvonne Brill (1924) -- Sally Ride (1951) -- Medicine -- Anna Williams (1863) -- Alice Ball (1892) -- Gerti Radnitz Cori (1896) -- Helen Brooke Taussing (1898) -- Elsie Widdowson (1906) -- Virginia Apgar (1909) -- Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910) -- Gertrude Elion (1918) -- Jane C. wright (1919) -- Biology and the environment -- Maria Sibylla Merian (1647) -- Jeanne Villepreux-Power (1794) -- Mary Anning (1799) -- Ellen Swallow Richards (1842) -- Alice Hamilton (1869) -- Alice Evans (1881) -- Tilly Edinger (1897) -- Rachel Carson (1907) -- Ruth Patrick (1907) -- Genetics and development -- Nettie Stevens (1861) -- Hilde Mangold (1898) -- Charlotte Auerbach (1899) -- Barbara McClintock (1902) -- Salome G. Waelsch (1907) -- Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909) -- Rosalind Franklin (1920) -- Anne McLaren (1927) -- Lynn Margulis (1938) -- Physics -- Emilie du Chatelet (1706) -- Lise Meitner (1878) -- Irene Juliot-Curie (1897) -- Maria Goeppert Mayer (1906) -- Marguerite Perey (1909) -- Chien-Shiung Wu (1912) -- Rosalyn Yalow (1921) -- Math and technology -- Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718) -- Ada Lovelace (1815) -- Florence Nightingale (1820) -- Sophie Kowalevski (1850) -- Emmy Noether (1882) -- Mary Cartwright (1900) -- Grace Murray Hopper (1906) -- Invention -- Hertha Ayrton (1854) -- Hedy Lamarr (1913) -- Ruth Benerito (1916) -- Stephanie Kwolek (1923).