The Silenced Women of STEM

What is a seismic wave?

Duh, it's the vibrations generated by an earthquake, explosion, or similar energetic source and propagated within the earth or along its surface.

Did you know u can better understand the Earth's structure with them? Today, we're going to talk about the woman who used math to better understand our world.

Sources

https://www.britannica.com/science/seismic-wave

https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/earth-inside-and-out/inge-lehmann-discoverer-of-the-earth-s-inner-core

https://oumnh.ox.ac.uk/learn-inge-lehmann

https://www.famousscientists.org/inge-lehmann/

What did you think women did back in the day for Gynecology? Going to the gynecologist is such a terrifying experience in 2025; I can't even imagine what it would be like before modern medicine. Well, back in the day, when scientific thought was just being birthed, little was known about people’s health, and even less was known about women’s bodies. Today we will be talking about Cleopatra Metrodora who some consider the “mother of gynecology”. She was a midwife, a surgeon, and obviously a gynecologist.

Sources:

https://www.schlagergroup.com/women-and-gender-in-the-ancient-world/

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Today’s episode is called “The Great Menstrual Lie”, and as ridiculous as that sounds, this was an actual medical debate in the 1800s. Male doctors genuinely believed that periods made women too weak, emotional, and unstable for higher education or real careers. Today, we’re talking about the woman who used real science to shut that argument down. This is the story of Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, the woman who proved that menstruation was never the problem… the pseudoscience was.

Sources

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/names1890s.html

https...

Someone be very proud of us because we are not covering a Mary, Maria, Marie today!! Instead we will be talking about Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, the first Native American to earn a medical degree and a woman at that.

Sources:

https://www.civilwarmed.org/la-flesche/

https://www.nebraskastudies.org/en/1875-1899/susan-la-flesche-picotte-first-na-female-physician/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/incredible-legacy-susan-la-flesche-first-native-american-earn-medical-degree-180962332/

https://picottecenter.org/dr-susan

https://exhibits.unmc.edu/whc/PicotteFamily

When we talk about the history of astronomy, we often hear about the same familiar names: Kepler, Galileo, and Copernicus. Men whose work helped define the scientific revolution. But hidden between these well-known figures are brilliant thinkers whose contributions were nearly lost to time, simply because they did not fit the mold of who society believed a scientist could be. Today, we want to introduce you to one of those remarkable individuals: Maria Cunitz. She lived during the early 17th century, in a world shaped by political upheaval, religious conflict, and strict limits on what women were allowed to...

Today, we’re talking about the woman behind the miracle of Test Tube Babies, the mother of IVF. A woman whose dedication helped solve infertility for millions of people around the world. Her name is Jean Purdy, and even though history tried to tuck her behind the men she worked with, her fingerprints are on every modern fertility clinic that exists today.

Sources:

https://winfertility.com/blog/jean-purdy-an-ivf-pioneer/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28881151/

https://www.bournhall.co.uk/fertilityblog/jean-purdy-ivf-pioneer/

https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/38/Su...

Where's the farthest you've ever traveled?

Well, what if planes didn’t exist and you had to take a two-month sea voyage instead?

Today’s woman in STEM traveled the world when airplanes weren’t even dreamed of yet. She self-funded a journey halfway across the globe to take care of soldiers that weren’t even from her country, and was never formally recognized for her nursing due to her skin color. Today, we are talking about Mary Seacole.

Sources:

https://www.maryseacoletrust.org.uk/learn-about-mary/#

https://www.aorn.org/arti...

You're familiar with the idea of a stressed, unpaid intern running around with a million things to do, of course to include grabbing the boss's lunch and fancy coffee order? Okay, now imagine that, but in the 1940s. You’re literally inventing a whole new kind of astronomy, working on secret radar systems during World War II, and everyone’s like, “Oh, sorry, can you file these papers real quick?”, “Can u grab me a coffee?”

Today, we’re talking about Ruby Payne Scott, a physicist who helped invent radio astronomy, was often treated like an office assistant, and...

Imagine diving to the bottom of the ocean while pregnant. Dude, I feel like when I am pregnant, I won’t be able to even move or do anything. But today’s woman in STEM was literally on the ocean floor while pregnant.

Sources:

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/sylvia-earle

https://www.britannica.com/science/marine-biology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Earle

https://missionblue.org/staff_member/sylvia-a-earle/

https://www.uw360.asia/sylvia-earle/#:~:text=Living%20two%20weeks%20underwater,it%20was%20before%2C%20was%20chan...

Imagine going to work or school or whatever, and that's just normal. Men's bathrooms are everywhere, but you have to walk across the street at the very least to go to the BATHROOM. Now imagine trying to do groundbreaking research and dealing with that. Well, that's what Lise Meitner had to do when she was discovering Nuclear Fission.

Sources

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lise-Meitner

https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/lise-meitner

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Meitner

https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/biographies/meitner.html <...

So we carved Pumpkins this weekend in celebration of fall, October, and all things spooky season. And you will never guess what Disha carved on her pumpkin.

It was a uterus…because there’s nothing scarier than being a woman. Well, that started me thinking about Women’s health, which led me to today’s Silenced Woman of STEM, a paleobotanist turned women’s health activist.

Sources:

https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/marie-charlotte-carmichael-stopes-1880-1958

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marie-Stopes

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-11040319

https...

Today’s Silenced Woman of STEM not only spent hours creating beautiful and scientifically accurate illustrations of the microscopic world, but she was also a self-taught naturalist, an acclaimed author, and an astronomer in a time when women were mostly banned from professional science. This is the story of Mary Ward. She published a significant amount of work, all while raising eight children. She also holds the unfortunate, morbid distinction of being the first person in the world known to have been killed in a motor vehicle accident.

Sources

https://www.herstory.ie/ne...

We will be taking a week break from SWOS to celebrate Durga Puja! Learn a bit about Hinduism and Bengali culture in this very special episode about Durga Puja!

Rita Levi - Montalcini created an entire laboratory in her bedroom when she was banned from her lab, she discovered a protein that changed how neuroscience is done, and won a noble prize all after surviving World War II. This is her story.

Sources:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10014200/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11490299/

https://www.nobelprize.org/stories/women-who-changed-science/rita-levi-montalcini/

https://civilrights.ku.edu/rita-levi-montalcini-md

Imagine moving to a different country by yourself at 18, getting a PhD by 26, and then decrypting the genome of one of the scariest viruses in the US at the time.

Flossie Wong-Staal was a pioneering molecular biologist and virologist whose work reshaped our understanding of HIV and AIDS. Born in China and later making her mark in the United States, Wong-Staal became the first scientist to clone HIV and map its genes, a breakthrough that opened the door to blood tests and lifesaving treatments. Beyond her discoveries, she was also a role model for women and immigrants...

Do you know who discovered climate change?

Most people would say John Tyndall, but that wouldn’t exactly be true. The actual first discoverer was a woman. But what's crazy is that she was almost completely erased from history. This is the story of Eunice Foote.

Sources

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/features/happy-200th-birthday-eunice-foote-hidden-climate-science-pioneer

https://www.aps.org/apsnews/2023/07/carbon-dioxide-atmosphere-eunice-foote

https://www.momscleanairforce.org/eunice-newton-foote/

https://www.schools.nyc.gov/learning/subjects/social-studies/hidden-voices/contentdetails/hidden-voices/2025/04/22/eunice-foote-the-nearly-forgotten-mother-of-climate-science

https://vitalsigns.edf.org/story/female-climate-scientist-youve-never-heard-should-have

...

Do you know who discovered climate change?

Most people would say John Tyndall, but that wouldn’t exactly be true. The actual first discoverer was a woman. But what's crazy is that she was almost completely erased from history. This is the story of Eunice Foote.

Sources:

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/features/happy-200th-birthday-eunice-foote-hidden-climate-science-pioneer

https://www.aps.org/apsnews/2023/07/carbon-dioxide-atmosphere-eunice-foote

https://www.momscleanairforce.org/eunice-newton-foote/

https://www.schools.nyc.gov/learning/subjects/social-studies/hidden-voices/contentdetails/hidden-voices/2025/04/22/eunice-foote-the-nearly-forgotten-mother-of-climate-science

https://vitalsigns.edf.org/story/fe...

Hypatia, an ancient Roman philosopher, was literally the smartest woman of her time, and people knew it. She was, in fact, so smart that she literally became a threat to Christianity… This is the story of Hypatia, the first female mathematician

What do the most ravishingly beautiful actresses of the 1930s and 40s and the inventor whose concepts were the basis of cell phone and Bluetooth technology have in common? They are both Hedy Lamarr, the glamour icon whose ravishing visage was the inspiration for Snow White and Cat Woman and a technological trailblazer who perfected a secure radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes during WWII.

This is the story of Hollywood film star and inventor, Hedy Lamarr.

Sources

https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/worldwide/digital-identity-and-security/magazine/women-technology-hedy-lamarr-mother-wi-fi

https://www...

You’ve seen quinceañera dresses, right? Imagine having to perform surgery in that. Dr. Mary Edwards Walker thought the same thing. Mary was one of the most progressive women of her time, who became a surgeon and refused to wear dresses. This story is kinda insane, so buckle up.

References:

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/mary-edwards-walker

https://www.nps.gov/people/mary-walker.htm

https://libraryguides.oswego.edu/c.php?g=191606&p=1264945

https://womenshistory.si.edu/blog/dr-mary-edwards-walker-recognized-new-us-quarter

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/mar...

Sources

https://www.amphilsoc.org/blog/cecilia-payne-gaposchkin-1900-1979

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/a-century-ago-pioneering-astrophysicist-cecilia-payne-gaposchkin-showed-us-what-stars-are-made-of-180986193/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cecilia-Payne-Gaposchkin

https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/cosmic-horizons-book/cecilia-payne-profile

Have you ever thought, hmm my sugar needs to be sweeter? Well, India did. They enlisted the help of Janaki Ammal, an Indian Botanist sweetened sugar, saved a forest, and traveled the world in search of knowledge. This is her story.

References:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-63445015

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/pioneering-female-botanist-who-sweetened-nation-and-saved-valley-180972765/

https://www.mpg.de/19967547/janaki-ammal

https://record.umich.edu/articles/it-happened-at-michigan-an-historic-doctorate-in-botany/

Imagine waking up every morning with joints so swollen and painful that even buttoning a shirt feels impossible, yet you still choose to spend your day hunched over delicate instruments, determined to uncover mysteries in chemistry. This was the world of Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, a woman who refused to be defined by pain or limited by the expectations of her time.

References:

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1964/hodgkin/biographical/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dorothy-Hodgkin

​​https://royalsociety.org/about-us/who-we-are/diversity-inclusion/case-studies/scientists-with-disabilities/dorothy-hodgkin/

https://www.biop...

What do royal wedding gowns, octopuses that look like aliens, and the invention of the aquarium have in common? One woman: Jeanne Villepreux-Power. Today, we’re diving into the story of a self-taught scientist who defied the odds, turned her home into a marine lab, and changed the way we study life in the ocean.

References:

https://oumnh.ox.ac.uk/learn-jeannette-villepreux-power

https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/12/26/jeanne-villepreux-power-argonaut/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jeanne-Villepreux-Power

https://scientificwomen.net/women/villepreux-jeanne-144

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PM...

It's 1963. You're 26 years old. You’ve left school at 16 to work in a textile factory. On weekends, you sneak off to jump out of airplanes, perhaps as an escape from day to day life. Suddenly, out of 400 candidates, you are chosen to become the first woman in space.

You’re launched into orbit alone, riding in a spacecraft with settings so wrong, if you hadn’t caught the mistake, you would have drifted endlessly into the void. You fix it. You stay calm. You orbit the Earth 48 times. And when you land, you're told to smile for the ca...

Have you heard about how Henry the VIII of England and his six wives? There’s like a whole musical about it now called SIX. Well Henry being the king that he was kept getting rid of his wives for various reasons, a large one being that his wives were not giving him male children. Well, the joke’s on Henry because we now know that sperm which is produced by men holds the key for sex determination aka it was lowkey Henry’s fault for not having sons. And you know who found out that men are the ones w...

6 years. What can you do in just 6 years? Could you change the world in 6 years? Probably not. But you know who did. Alice Ball. From graduating high school to her death, Alice Ball invented a technique in just 6 years that would change the world.

References:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c00611

https://www.britannica.com/topic/kava#ref90385

https://lhncbc.nlm.nih.gov/LHC-publications/PDF/pub2003048.pdf

https://www.uhfoundation.org/impact/students/woman-who-changed-world

https://www.unmc.edu/healthsecurity/transmission/2023/04/11/overlooked-no-more-alice-ball-chemist-who-created-a-treatment-for-leprosy/

...

Imagine your best friend gets murdered. You call the cops, expecting a team equipped with gloves, evidence bags, testing kits, all of that. Instead, they trample through the house, accidentally ruining all the evidence that could have led them directly to your friend's killer. While this would cause outrage in today’s society, this was normal in the 1800s. Investigators were not investigating back then (they didn't even have proper training).

There was this one grandma who had enough. She decided that she would contribute the rest of her life to teaching the cops how to cop. Sh...

Did you know that most dentists back in the day did NOT have a dental license? It makes sense now why a lot of people were scared of going to the dentist. Because back then, you didn't know if your dentist was a guy who knew what he was doing or just some rando who liked teeth.

Now imagine TRYING to get your dental license, so that you are credible, but you are basically barred from getting one because you're a girl, even though you are grossly overeducated. You wouldn’t stand for that, so you basically ch...

Imagine that you have 9 other siblings (maybe 8), but they all die except your one older brother. Your family is also incredibly poor, but you enjoy hunting fossils with your father. Even though you have NO education, he helps you learn geology and anatomy. But then he also dies. Now you are even poorer. And even though it is frowned upon for a girl, your mother makes you continue laboring for fossils in hopes of earning a few extra pennies.

References

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/mary-anning-unsung-hero.html

https://oumnh.ox.ac.uk...