Discover the Women of the Hall

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. Anna Wessels Williams was a pioneer in the field of immunology. She earned her medical degree from the Women’s Medical College in New York before joining the nation’s first municipal diagnostic laboratory at the New York City Department of Health.

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.

Nuclear physicist whose pioneering work altered modern physical theory and changed the accepted view of the structure of the universe.

First American woman trained in the U.S. to win the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Known for pioneering the use of radioisotopes to analyze physiological systems, Yalow made possible very detailed analysis of blood chemistry, saving lives and allowing for proper doses of medication.