Discover the Women of the Hall

Engineer, inventor, and business owner, Beatrice Hicks was a pioneer in gaining recognition for women engineers at a time when less than 1% of all U.S. employed engineers were women. She was a founding member and first president of the Society of Women Engineers (1950), which now has a membership of more than 16,000.

In 1973, Emily Warner became the first American female commercial airline pilot when Frontier Airlines broke the barrier against hiring women pilots. She later became the nation’s first woman airline captain, also at Frontier Airlines.

Chemist and refrigeration expert Mary Engle Pennington saved thousands of lives by creating national standards for milk and dairy inspection and improved the safety and convenience of refrigerated and frozen foods. She was also instrumental in developing safe and sanitary methods for the storage and handling of poultry, fish, and eggs, contributing techniques that solved humidity control problems, insulation and ventilation issues.

Interested in science and medicine from a young age, Kwolek graduated from Carnegie Institute of Technology and then took a job at DuPont Chemicals to save for graduate studies. However, her love of working with polymers kept her at DuPont, where she discovered the fiber that led to the development of Kevlar, a bulletproof material five times stronger than steel. Kwolek is the recipient or co-recipient of 17 U.S. patents.

Appointed Secretary of the Air Force in 1993 by President Clinton, Widnall became the first woman to hold the position. A world-renowned scientist, she holds three patents in airflow technology. As a current member of MIT faculty, she is internationally known for her work in fluid dynamics, specifically in the areas of aircraft turbulence and the spiraling air flows called vortices created by helicopters.

Dr. Rita R. Colwell became the first woman and first biologist to head the National Science Foundation in 1998, spearheading the agency’s emphases in K-12 science and mathematics education, graduate science and engineering education/training and the increased participation of women and minorities in science and engineering.

Born in Rochester, New York, Scott was a pioneering aviatrix, becoming the first American woman to take a solo hop into the air, although her flight is not regarded as official. In 1910, she became one of the first woman to drive an automobile coast to coast in her car – the ‚”Lady Overland”. Scott was also the first and only woman to take flying lessons from Glenn Curtiss, later flying with the Curtiss Exhibition Team and earning the nickname ‚”Tomboy of the Air”.

A student of Franz Boas and mentor to Margaret Mead, Ruth Fulton Benedict was a highly influential anthropologist whose theories tremendously influenced the field of cultural anthropology. Her 1934 Patterns of Culture became an American classic and is still a highly regarded publication today.

As the former Dean of Engineering at Cooper Union and the Executive Director of the Cooper Union Research Foundation, Dr. Eleanor Baum is the first female engineer to be named dean of a college of engineering in the United States. In 1995, she became the first female president of the American Society for Engineering Education. An electrical engineer who has worked in the aerospace industry, Dr. Baum is a respected leader in recruitment and retention of women in the engineering profession.

After graduating from the University of Zurich medical school, Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross married and moved to the United States. She began working in hospitals, where she was appalled at the treatment of terminally ill patients. Her 1969 bestseller On Death and Dying revolutionized the medical profession’s treatment and understanding of dying patients, serving as a voice for the rights of the terminally ill. Her work was a catalyst for now commonly accepted ideas such as hospice care, living wills, and death with dignity.

The first female to pursue infrared and submillimieter astronomy into ultra sensitive light detection of celestial bodies, Dr. Judith Pipher is a highly regarded infrared astronomer. As a professor with the University of Rochester for 31 years, she founded a group of observational infrared astronomers who took the first telescopic infrared pictures of starburst galaxies. Dr. Pipher was also instrumental in designing aspects of the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope, launched in 2003.

A groundbreaking scientist in several important areas of biological research, Mildred Cohn pioneered research that helped form the scientific understanding of mechanisms of enzymatic reactions and the methods of studying them. In 1946, she introduced the use of isotopic oxygen 18 to study metabolic processes and enzyme mechanisms. She later applied nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) to investigate metabolism and metabolic intermediates. Cohn has published more than 150 scientific papers and has received several awards for her work, including the National Medal of Science in 1982.

A pioneer in the field of limnology – the scientific study of the life and phenomena of fresh water, especially lakes and ponds – Ruth Patrick provided methods needed to monitor water pollution and understand its effects. Patrick is credited, along with Rachel Carson, as being largely responsible for ushering in the current worldwide concerns with ecology. She was the first female elected chair of the board of the Academy of Natural Sciences and received the National Medal of Science in 1996.

An internationally recognized leader in the field of atmospheric science, Susan Solomon pioneered the theory explaining how and why the ozone hole occurs in Antarctica, and obtained some of the first chemical measurements that established man-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as its cause. Solomon is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 1999 National Medal of Science and the Asahi Foundation of Japan’s Blue Planet Prize in 2004. From 2002-2008, Solomon served as the co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Albert Gore, Jr. in 2007. Solomon’s current research as a senior scientist with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration focuses on climate change, ozone depletion and the links between the two.

An internationally renowned nursing leader, Dr. Loretta C. Ford has devoted her career to practice, education, research, consultation and the delivery of health services. Dr. Ford is best known for co-founding the nurse practitioner model through her studies on the nurse’s expanded scope of practice in public health nursing. In 1972, Dr. Ford became the founding dean of the University of Rochester School of Nursing, where she implemented the unification model. Dr. Ford is the author of more than 100 publications and has served as a consultant and lecturer to multiple organizations and universities.

A pioneering chemist, Helen Murray Free conducted research that revolutionized diagnostic testing in the laboratory and at home. Free is the co-developer of Clinistix, the first dip-and-read diagnostic test strips for monitoring glucose in urine. Along with her husband, Alfred Free, she also developed additional strips for testing levels of key indicators for other diseases. Today, dip-and-read strips make testing for diabetes, pregnancy, and other conditions available in underdeveloped regions of the United States and in foreign countries. Free is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Medal of Technology and Innovation and the American Chemical Society’s 66th National Historic Chemical Landmark designation (2010).

A certified professional midwife who has attended more than 1,200 births, Ina May Gaskin is known as the “mother of authentic midwifery.” In 1971, Gaskin founded the Farm Midwifery Center in rural Tennessee and effectively demonstrated that home birth midwives could be well prepared for their profession without first being educated as obstetric nurses. During a stay in Guatemala in 1976, Gaskin learned a technique for preventing and resolving shoulder dystocia during birth. After using the method with great success, Gaskin began to teach it and publish articles about the method. Now referred to as the Gaskin maneuver, it is the first obstetrical maneuver to be named after a midwife. Gaskin is the author of four books, including Spiritual Midwifery (1975), the first text written by a midwife published in the United States.

The first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in figure skating.  Named one of the “100 Greatest Female Athletes.”  A successful surgeon and leader in blood plasma research, she works in international efforts to eradicate polio.

Microbiologist whose landmark discovery that pathogenic bacteria communicate with each other via a system known as “quorum sensing” served as the foundation for an entire field of study and has led to drug development to interrupt the bacterial communication process.

Her work investigating T-cells, the family of cells that help the body fight disease, has led to a greater knowledge of the molecular basis of the immune system and contributed to medicine’s current understanding of vaccines, HIV, and other immune disorders.

An animal sciences innovator and champion of farm animal welfare whose masterly designs for livestock handling systems transformed the industry and are used worldwide today. Her life and work have “revolutionized the study of autism,” as she had applied her insights gained from her own experience with autism to conceptualize equipment that reduces animal stress during the livestock handling process.

A geneticist whose research established that cancer is a genetic disease. Her discovery of chromosomal exchanges revolutionized cancer research, diagnosis and treatment. Her research led directly to the development of the cancer drug imatinib, one of the most effective targeted cancer therapies to date, leading to 90% of patients with certain forms of leukemia being “cured” where previously life expectancy had been three to five years.

A world-renowned virologist and molecular biologist, Dr. Flossie Wong-Staal and her team of scientists at the U.S. National Cancer Institute were the first to molecularly clone HIV and to elucidate the complex structure of its genome. This accomplishment was instrumental in proving HIV to be the cause of AIDS, and in the subsequent development of diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for the disease.

Lacks is best recognized for her immortal HeLa cells, which have been used in research that led to the development of the Polio vaccine, chemotherapy, and contributed to Parkinson’s research.