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Your Task

1. Choose a woman in STEM from history or today’s world

2. Research her contributions to STEM and impact on society

3. Find the location where she lived, worked, or made her most significant contribution

4. Add a post by clicking the + button and searching for or pinning the location on the map

5. Complete all fields in your post with the required information

6. Add an image of the woman you researched (photo, portrait, or AI-generated image)

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Katherine Johnson was born on August 26, 1918, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. From a young age, she showed an extraordinary talent for mathematics, often counting everything she saw and finishing school early. Because educational opportunities for Black students were limited in her hometown, her parents moved so she could attend a high school on the campus of West Virginia State College. She graduated high school at just 14 and went on to attend West Virginia State, where she studied mathematics and French. Encouraged by her professors—especially Dr. W.W. Schieffelin Claytor, one of the first African Americans to earn a Ph.D. in math—Johnson was inspired to pursue advanced mathematics, even when few women, especially Black women, were in the field.

In 1953, she began working at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which later became NASA. Johnson specialized in complex mathematical concepts such as orbital mechanics and trajectory analysis. She calculated the flight paths for several important missions, including Alan Shepard’s first U.S. spaceflight in 1961 and John Glenn’s orbit around Earth in 1962. Glenn famously refused to fly until Johnson personally verified the computer’s calculations.

Katherine Johnson faced significant barriers as both an African American and a woman during the era of segregation and gender inequality. She worked in a racially segregated office and had to fight to be included in meetings and discussions dominated by men. Despite these obstacles, her brilliance and persistence earned her the respect of her peers and a lasting legacy in STEM.

Johnson’s work not only helped launch the U.S. space program but also paved the way for women and people of color in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Her story, highlighted in the book and film Hidden Figures, continues to inspire new generations to reach for the stars.

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Rosalind Franklin's contributions include her critical work on x-ray diffraction images of DNA, specifically "Photo 51", which provided key evidence for the double helix structure of DNA.

She also advanced the field of structural virology by determining the structures of a many viruses like the tobacco mosaic virus, and her early research on carbon structures was a valuable aspect for the development of heat-resistant materials and carbon fiber.

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Grace Hopper born Decemeber 9, 1906 in New York City, New York. Very young she had a very strong love towards machines and her parents were amazed.

Later down the road she moved to Arlington Virginia, and attended Vassar College and got into mathematician and physics. She then received her bachelors in physics and in 1930 earned her masters and then her PhD in mathematics 4 years later.

After college she got into the U.S. Navy but was denied because of her age so that was a big challenge for her, So then she received a spot at Harvard to work on the Mark I computer and joined the Eckertaumchly computer corporation.

Due to her love for what she does she started making huge contributations to Stem (mainly in computer science and programming). She invented the first compiler which is a device that translated programming instructions and also developed CAMBOL (common business orinated language). And after she accomplished that she had a huge impact on society, She especially paved the way for women in technology and also made programming more accessible through all of the innovations she helped with.

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Annie Jump Cannon was a really talented astronomer that got to change the way scientists see stars today due to her exceptionally way of thinking. Annie Jump Cannon was born on December 11, 1863 in Dover, Delaware. She managed to create a whole classification system called "The Harvard spectral system" which scientist still use today. She was also able to classify 350,000 stars manually, which was crazy to do at that time. Her mother was her inspiration to get into the science field. She was able to go to Wellesly College and studied physics and astronomy. She later got hired at the Harvard College Observatory and became a part of a group of woman called "computers" which were used to classify stars. Even though this sounded like an amazing job for Annie, she was actually underpaid as well as the rest of the women in the group. This didn't stop her from achieving great things and this is the moment where she was able to create her own star classifying system based on the temperature of the stars. She was known for her ability to classify stars in a short amount of time and was able to classify 5,000 stars per month from 1911 to 1915.

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Mary Hunt (Left) with a fellow worker inside Peoria’s USDA Northern Regional Research Laboratory, ca. 1943.

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Mary’s contributions to STEM would be her research and discovery of strains of mold; one strain in particular, NRRL 1951, produced large quantities of penicillin, and was used for the large-scale production of penicillin. This would become the first commonly used antibiotic, and would go on to save over 500 million lives since WWII.

Mary primarily worked as a NRRL laboratory technician at the “Ag. Lab”, which is based in Peoria, Illinois. It was in Peoria that she found the cantaloupe containing the strain NRRL 1951, and ultimately made her discovery.

Much of Mary’s life is currently unknown; there is little information regarding her upbringing, childhood, inspirations, etc. Despite this, however, it is known that she studied bacteriology and public health while in college. Mary also married following the discovery, as found in her name change to Mary Stevens.

Due to a lack of information outside of her discovery and work, it is not known for sure what barriers Mary would have dealt with, but it is likely that she experienced sexism as a woman working in 1943. This particular barrier may have also led to the confusion and lack of information surrounding her life and contributions.

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Radia Perlman was born in Portsmouth, Virginia in 1951. Her father was a radar technician and her mother was a computer programmer. She grew up in New Jersey and was gifted in math and science, although she felt intimidated by computer programming classes in school.

She attended MIT where she earned her degrees in mathematics and discovered her love for programming. She was heavily inspired by her parents who were engineers and her interest in mathematics. Radia faced challenges such as gender bias, trouble finding a thesis advisor early in her career, and wanting to design simple systems when things weren't as user friendly.

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Hedy Lamarr, born Hedwig Kiesler on November 9, 1914, in Vienna, Austria, is best known for her celebrated career in film. Raised in an upper-class family with a father who was a bank director and a mother who was a concert pianist, Lamarr received a well-rounded education. As an only child, she had private tutors, dance and music lessons, and attended a prestigious finishing school in Switzerland. At the age of 16, she began studying acting at Max Reinhardt’s renowned drama school in Berlin, which launched her successful career in the film industry.

Though Lamarr was a talented actress, her intellectual curiosity and passion for technology went far beyond the arts. Early discussions with her father about machines sparked her interest in technology. This fascination grew, especially during her marriage to munitions manufacturer Fritz Mandl. Through Mandl, she gained access to high-level military meetings, which fueled her growing interest in engineering and military technology.

Despite her fame, Lamarr faced significant challenges. She was frequently underestimated and dismissed, not just because of her status as a Hollywood actress, but also due to the gender stereotypes of both Hollywood and the scientific community. She was not taken seriously as an inventor, and in fact, her groundbreaking invention was rejected by the U.S. Navy. Despite these challenges, Lamarr's work in frequency hopping during World War II would go on to lay the foundation for modern wireless technologies like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS; technologies now valued in the billions.

In collaboration with composer George Antheil, Lamarr developed a system that used rapidly changing radio frequencies to prevent signal jamming, which was critical to secure military communications. Although initially met with skepticism, her invention proved revolutionary. Unfortunately, at the time, she received no recognition or compensation for her contribution, and the military did not adopt it during the war. It wasn’t until years later that her work was acknowledged for its significance to the future of communication technologies.

Lamarr’s contributions are a prime example of how innovation can emerge from the most unexpected places. Her story serves as an inspiring testament to the power of intellectual curiosity and perseverance, especially for women in STEM fields, showing that groundbreaking advancements can come from anyone; regardless of their primary field of expertise.

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She had a big impact of our world today, Ada Lovelace was the one and only women who invented coding.er for writing the first algorithm intended for a machine, while Charles Babbage is known as the "father of the computer". Lovelace wrote the first algorithm for Babbage's Analytical Engine in the 1840s which kicked off the start of programming for Ada.

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Danielle Wood grew up near NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where she developed an early interest in space exploration. Despite initially planning to study architecture, a high school teacher encouraged her to apply for a NASA internship, which she did.

Danielle Wood was/is an assistant professor in the MIT Media Lab, where she directs the research group Space Enabled. Prior to joining MIT, Wood worked as special assistant to Dava Newman at NASA. Wood looks to advance justice using technology created in space.

Career-related setbacks, including being rejected by several universities for faculty positions. She persisted and eventually achieved success, becoming a professor at MIT.