Special Report

Women in Science

Smithsonian.com is sharing the stories of women scientists who also changed the world, but were written out of history. These pioneers paved the way for future generations of women scientists and explorers. But spotlighting their stories is about more than just augmenting women’s history. It's about understanding the cultural attitudes, historical forces and social realities that made science what it is today—and what it will be tomorrow.

Illustration made using an 1851 portrait of Mitchell by H. Dassell and a false-color image of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A by NASA. Wikimedia Commons

Frances Oldham Kelsey, a pharmacologist with the Food & Drug Administration, helped prevent a generation of children born with congenital deformities in the United States.

The Woman Who Stood Between America and a Generation of 'Thalidomide Babies'

Ahead of her time: Foote first identified the greenhouse effect, now a seminal concept in climate science.

The Scientist Who Defined the Greenhouse Effect, But Didn’t Get the Credit

Anna Morandi Manzolini (1714-1774), Italian anatomist and sculptor, from a drawing by Cesare Bettini.

The Lady Anatomist Who Brought Dead Bodies to Light

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Illustration made using an 1851 portrait of Mitchell by H. Dassell and a false-color image of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A by NASA.

When Girls Studied Planets And the Sky Had No Limits

Maria Mitchell, America's first female astronomer, flourished at a time when both sexes “swept the sky”

For all their flaws, lab mice have become an invaluable research model for genetics, medicine, neuroscience and more. But few people know the story of the first standardized lab mice.

The History of Breeding Mice for Science Begins With a Woman in a Barn

Kono Yasui at Tokyo University.

How a Pioneering Botanist Broke Down Japan’s Gender Barriers

Anandibai Joshee (left), Kei Okami and Tabat M. Islambooly, students from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania.

This 19th Century "Lady Doctor" Helped Usher Indian Women Into Medicine

Melba Roy led the group of human computers who tracked the Echo satellites in the 1960s.

The True Story of “Hidden Figures,” the Women Who Helped Win the Space Race

Baber gathering fossils at Mazon Creek, Illinois, 1895, during the first field class at the University of Chicago to which women were admitted.

The Woman Who Transformed How We Teach Geography

A 1939 photo of German Jewish refugees aboard the German liner Saint Louis.

The Forgotten Women Scientists Who Fled the Holocaust for the United States

Related Stories

Nicknamed the Hand of God, this pulsar wind nebula is powered by a pulsar: the leftover, dense core of a star that blew up in a supernova explosion. Before astronomers had any idea what they were, Jocelyn Bell Burnell found the signal of a pulsar in her telescope data in 1967.

Fifty Years Ago, a Grad Student’s Discovery Changed the Course of Astrophysics

Ada Lovelace, “The world’s first computer programmer.” In the mid 1800s, she predicted that machines would compose music and forward scientific progress, based on her experiences programming Charles Babbage’s “Analytical Engine,” to calculate Bernoulli numbers." />

These Bold Illustrations Celebrate the Incredible Contributions of Women in Science

Marie Tharp's map helped vindicate plate tectonics, but her work was initially dismissed as

Seeing Is Believing: How Marie Tharp Changed Geology Forever

Marie Curie in one of her mobile X-ray units in October 1917

How Marie Curie Brought X-Ray Machines To the Battlefield

Naomi Weisstein was a feminist activist, a neuropsychologist and, for a brief time, a rock 'n roll musician.

This Feminist Psychologist-Turned-Rock-Star Led a Full Life of Resistance

Margaret Harwood sits on the floor for this posed tableau taken on May 19, 1925. Harvia Wilson is at far left, sharing a table with Annie Cannon (too busy to look up) and Antonia Maury (left foreground). The woman at the drafting table is Cecilia Payne.

In "The Glass Universe," Dava Sobel Brings the Women 'Computers' of Harvard Observatory to Light

As 19th century urban living became more cramped, some women began to reinvent the domestic sphere with technology.

These Four Black Women Inventors Reimagined the Technology of the Home

Sunita Narain has been working for climate justice with the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment since 1982.

How an Environmental Activist Became a Pioneer for Climate Justice in India

Each time you use your phone's weather app, you're indebted to a self-taught computer scientist named Klara von Neumann.

The Unheralded Contributions of Klara Dan von Neumann

<em>Ad Astra per Astra</em> by America Meredith

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Meet the Little-Known Math Genius Who Helped America Reach the Stars