March is celebrated as Women's History Month and to celebrate, I'm hosting my first meme on diversity in the sciences.
Can you name 5 Women Scientists from each scientific discipline?
Rules:
1. You can't choose people from your own institution or company.
2. You can't google or use the internet to aid in your search. (But if you know someone is a scientist, but not sure what disciple, you can look that up).
3. You can consult textbooks, journals, and class notes.
4. You can ask others to help you brainstorm, but they can't use the internet just to get 5 names fast (see #2).
5. Living and deceased scientists are acceptable.
6. Links to or references about the named scientists are greatly appreciated. Let's share the knowledge.
List as many as you can, even if it isn't five. And multi-cultural lists are a plus.
Major Discipline Fields:
Astronomy
Biology
Biomedical & Medicine
Chemistry
Genetics
Geography
Geology
Physics
Psychology
Space & Planetary Sciences
I encourage you to post this meme at your page and track back. Thanks
Thanks to Renaisauce for inspiring this phenomenal idea.
Other Blogs Hosting this Meme
The Urban Scientist Reader Blog at ScienceBlog.com
Greg Laden's Blog at ScienceBlogs
Eclectic Echoes
Good Math, Bad Math -- adds in Computer Science as science field.
Dinochick Blog - adds in Paleontologists.
Planet Musings
Dynamics of Cats - read comments, includes spontaneous discussion about Astronomers from different ethnic groups, too.
Uncertain Principles: Physics, Politics, Pop Culture
Monday, March 10, 2008
Science Diversity Meme - Women Scientists
21 comments:
Mae Jameson, MD (NASA Astronaut)
Carolyn Finney (Geography)
I didn't include Space & Planetary Sciences. I'll do that. Thanks for adding that.
Urban Scientist, I'd like to write about Dr Funmi Olapade at the University of Chicago, the physician-scientist clinical cancer geneticist who recently received a MacArthur Fdn Genius Award. Perhaps a Genetics category or even Biomedical Sciences?
Thanks Abel - Biomedical Science is a great category (it can iclude MDs and MD/PhDs). Will add.
Thanks. And other commenters, feel free to keep making recommendations,
I'm not sure how this works as a meme exactly, but here is my preliminary list:
Major Discipline Fields:
Astronomy and physics combined
Henrietta Something...The lady who worked at Harvard Observatory and helped discover binary stars.
Jocelyn Bell (Pulsars)
Rosie Franklin
Madam Curie
Maria Goppert (sp?) (atomic structure)
Biolog, Biomedical and Medicine combined
Beatrix Potter (fungus)
Jane Goodall
B. McClintock
M.E. Ruvulo
C. Knott
A. Yoder
Linda Buck!
Helen Keller
Rosalyn Yalow
Rosie Franklin
Barbara McClintock
Chemistry
There are no women chemists. No wait, there are..
Madam Lavoisier, wife of somebody.
Judy Sealey
Susan Young
Sara/Sarah Wilson? (South Africa)
Geography
I only know geographers from my own institution.
Geology and earth/space/planetery sciences
Kay Behrensmyer
Mary Lyell
Emi Ito
Psychology
I'd rather not mention her name. She was a realy bad marriage counciler.
I combined some of the fields because I don't quite get the distinction in relation to the person (and there are historical changes that go away if you combine them).
Greg: great job. Combining is okay. I was torn about that, too.
For everyone else, go figure out who Greg's Geography colleagues are and name them.
Thanks!
Okay, my turn:
Astronomy:
Biology: Bobbie Lowe, Ruth Hubbard, Marty Crump, Erica Wildy, Sharon Franks
Biomedical & Medicine: Mae Jemison (she could go for Space Sciences, too.)
Chemistry: Marie Currie, Karen Venti
Genetics: Fisher's Wife
Geography: Carolyn Finney
Geology: Green Gabbro blogger (I just made her acquintance)
Physics: Margaret Wertheim, Jennifer Ouellette, Einstein's wife
Psychology: Dereece Smither, Meredith West
Space & Planetary Sciences:
Linking from comments made at ScienceBlogs.com - Fred Bortz
http://scienceblog.com/cms/can-you-name-5-women-scientists-15637.html#comment-28033
Mae Jemison (astronaut) is the only one that I could name without going to the Internet.
peace, Villager
I'm adding my commenter's suggestions as they come in.
Villager: Good start.
I'm posting comments from ScienceBlogs.com made by Renaisauce
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/can-you-name-5-women-scientists-15637.html#comment-28040
Commenters at Gred Laden's Blog are weighing in, too.
If anyone posts the meme as a blog entry just let me know and I'll add links to your articles in the original posting. That way, people only have to comment once - on your page.
I have a new addition.
Biology: Barbara Weiss. I heard her on NPR this morning -- she was talking about her memory research with catepillars and moths - published at PLoS.
30 women scientists, most new, some repeats at eclecticechoes.com, with links to bio or lab pages.
No women chemists? I find it a little sad that only Marie Curie makes multiple lists. These women are currently in academia:
Alanna Schepartz (Yale)
Laura Kiessling (Wisconsin)
Carolyn Bertozzi (Berkeley)
Alice Ting (MIT)
Catherine Fenseleau
Carol Fierke (Michigan)
And those are the ones I could remember off the top of my head.
Lise Meitner - Physics
Shirley Jackson - Theoretical Physics
Henrietta Swan Leavitt - Astonomy
Laurie Marker - Biology
Barbara Block - Marine Ecology and Biology
Lisa Levin - Marine Ecology / Oceanography
Cindy Lee Van Dover - Oceanography
Rosalind Franklin - Biology
B. Galdikas - Biology
Meave Leakey - Paleontology
Louise Leakey - Paleontology
Mary Leakey - Anthropolgy
Jane Goodall - Biology and Anthropology
Sylvia Earle - Marine Biology / Oceanography
Eugenie Clark - Marine Biology
Marie Curie - Chemistry and Physics
Irene Joliot-Curie - Chemistry
Helene Langevin-Joliot - Physics
Caroline Herschel - Astronomy
Gerty Cori - Biochemistry
Maria Mitchell - Astronomy (pdf bio)
Sue Hendrickson - Paleontology
Jennifer Blank - Geochemistry
Jill Tarter - Astronomy
Beth Shapiro - Biology
Lisa Kaltenegger - Astrophysics
Amber VanDerwarker - Anthropology
Elizabeth Catlos - Geochemistry
Penny Boston - Biology
Diana Northup - Biology
I had to jump in and add a boot load of paleontology women to the list. Check it out on my blog!
Sorry, here is the url http://paleochick.blogspot.com/
I wasn't googling, but reading fellow AfroSpear member's (BETF) blog and discovered
Dr. Elva Jones, chair of Winston Salem State University's Computer Science Department and professor of computer science.
They also have a post about black women mathematicians.
Before I post my highly restricted list I would like to posit another question. What percentage of female grad students are at your universities, versus the percentage of female professors. I believe the answers will be most revealing. In Geology it is VERY common to find about 50% female grad students and 5% to 10% female professors (or none at all). The companies hiring students in geology as employees frequently comment that the women are much better candidates than the men. Too bad that in far too many cases universities maintain the 'men's room' mentality. Scatological reference intended. List follows.
Geology: Tanya Atwater,Mary Anning, Marie Tharp, Inge Lehmann, Helen Tappan Loeblich.
Math: Hypathia, Caroline Herschel, Sofia Kosavaleskya, Edna Krammer Lasson, Irene Fonseca
Genetics: Rosalind Franklin
Astronomy: Henrietta Leavett
Interesting... in an oceanography program...
6 of 28 teaching faculty are female (21%)
30 of 50 grad students are female (60%)
Further info on divergence between % female grad students and % female professors, this has been true since 1980; source is personal observation. I got my Masters in 1980, I have 17 publications, including publishing my MS thesis. I have taught a Jr. Colleges, was tenured, gave up job, went back into industry.
pbell4: I'll look get those numbers for my department and post about it.
I found more -- While being a supernerd and watching the History Channel special about Saturn, I jotted down the names of the female scientists interviewed on the program.
Space/Planetary Sciences:
(Question: How is Space/Planetary Sciences different than Astronomy?
Carolyn Porco of the Cassini Imaging Team
Laura Danly of the Griffith Observatory
Margaret Tolbert of the Univ of Colorado
Okay, this month's meme is coming to an end. Thanks to everyone for contributing and reading.
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