Discoveries &
Inventions

Published the first computer algorithm

Developed the first compiler (A-0 System)

One of six original ENIAC programmers

One of six original ENIAC programmers

One of six original ENIAC programmers

First woman to receive the Turing Award (2006)

Led Apollo on-board flight software development

Invented Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)

Turing Award recipient (2008)

Turing Award recipient (2012)

Created ImageNet, catalyzing the deep learning revolution

First American woman with a PhD in Computer Science (1965)

Co-developed Smalltalk at Xerox PARC

Developed inverse document frequency (IDF)

Revolutionized VLSI chip design

Designed the ARM instruction set, used in billions of devices

Founded Freelance Programmers (1962), pioneering remote work

Created Systers mailing list for women in computing (1987)

Broke German Naval Enigma codes at Bletchley Park

Created the original Macintosh icons and fonts

Created River Raid, a landmark video game (1982)

Created the first computerized word processor (1969)

Pioneered open hypermedia and the Microcosm system

Led development of black hole imaging algorithm

Developed IBM Home Page Reader voice browser

Pioneered the use of computers in biomedical research

VP of Engineering for Google Chrome

Founded recursion theory as an independent field

Programmed Monte Carlo simulations on ENIAC and MANIAC I

Patented the illusion transmitter for 3D imaging (1980)

Received one of the first software patents in the U.S. (1971)

Co-designed the C-10 programming language for UNIVAC I

Pioneer of VoIP technology with over 200 patents

One of the first commercial computer programmers on Ferranti Mark 1

Developed the internet domain naming scheme (.com, .edu, .gov, .mil, .org)

Led the Neoplatonic school in Alexandria

Major contributions to number theory and Fermat's Last Theorem

Formulated Noether's theorem linking symmetry and conservation

First woman in Europe to earn a mathematics PhD

First woman to receive the Fields Medal (2014)

Discovered early examples of chaos theory

Wrote first comprehensive calculus textbook by a woman

Invented the polar area diagram (coxcomb chart)

Correctly explained lunar eclipses through home experiments

Calculated trajectory for first American orbital spaceflight

Key contributor to solving Hilbert's tenth problem

First woman to win the Abel Prize (2019)

Developed Daubechies wavelets for signal processing

Second woman to win the Fields Medal (2022)

Author of foundational text 'Spectral Graph Theory'

Proved existence and uniqueness of Navier-Stokes solutions in 2D

First woman to direct the Courant Institute at NYU

Disproved the Kodaira conjecture for compact Kähler manifolds

Published over 300 papers on matrix theory and number theory

Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize recipient (1995)

First woman to win a Nobel Prize (Physics, 1903)

Provided first theoretical explanation of nuclear fission

Proved parity non-conservation (Wu experiment)

Nobel Prize in Physics (1963) for nuclear shell model

Translated Newton's Principia Mathematica into French

Nobel Prize in Physics (2018) for chirped pulse amplification

Discovered pulsars as a graduate student (1967)

Provided first strong evidence for dark matter

Discovered stars are primarily hydrogen and helium

First woman to read a paper before the Royal Society

Nobel Prize in Physics (2020) for black hole discovery

Pioneered carbon nanostructure research

First woman Director-General of CERN (2016)

Co-developed Peccei-Quinn theory solving the strong CP problem

Pioneered physical science techniques in archaeology

Pioneering research on cosmic ray tracks in photographic plates

Part of LIGO team that first detected gravitational waves (2015)

Slowed light to 17 meters per second (1999)

Key role in the discovery of the J/ψ particle (1974)

First African American woman to earn a PhD from MIT (1973)

Led design and construction of the Tevatron at Fermilab

First experimental confirmation of the Kondo effect

Captured Photo 51, key evidence for DNA's structure

Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1964)

Developed the Ball Method for treating leprosy

Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1935) for artificial radioactivity

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1988)

Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2020) for CRISPR-Cas9

Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2020) for CRISPR-Cas9

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2015)

Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2018) for directed evolution of enzymes

Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2009) for ribosome structure studies

Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2022) for bioorthogonal and click chemistry

First African American woman to earn a PhD in chemistry in the U.S. (1947)

Developed anti-epileptic and anti-malarial drugs from plant sources

Pioneered surface tension measurements at her kitchen sink

First woman to earn a PhD in chemistry from the University of Breslau (1900)

Pioneered NMR spectroscopy for studying enzyme mechanisms

Developed practical methods for determining molecular structures

Discovered that DNA conducts electrical charge

First woman to earn a medical degree in the U.S. (1849)

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1983)

Published Silent Spring, catalyzing the environmental movement

Discovered chimpanzees make and use tools

Discovered first correctly identified ichthyosaur skeleton

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1986)

Discovered chromosomal basis of sex determination

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2008)

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1995)

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2004)

First woman to qualify as physician in Britain

Created the Apgar Score used worldwide on newborns

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1947) for the Cori cycle

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2014) for discovering grid cells

First woman to hold a full professorship at Johns Hopkins Medicine

Founded the field of pediatric cardiology

Founded the Karisoke Research Center in Rwanda (1967)

First woman appointed to the faculty of Harvard Medical School (1919)

Developed the Lancefield grouping system for streptococcal bacteria

Discovered the polyomavirus (Stewart-Eddy polyomavirus)

First officially licensed female doctor of Western medicine in Japan (1885)

Pioneered understanding of the prefrontal cortex and working memory

First woman to discover a comet

Discovered the period-luminosity relationship of Cepheid stars

Developed the Harvard spectral classification system

Discovered the Horsehead Nebula

First woman in space (1963)

First American woman in space (1983)

First African-American woman in space (1992)

First Chinese woman in space (2012)

Most time in space by an American astronaut (665 days)

Discovered 32 comets — more than any living person at the time

NASA's first chief of astronomy

Co-authored the B²FH paper on stellar nucleosynthesis

Led SETI research for decades as director of the SETI Institute

First Chinese woman to perform a spacewalk (2021)

First European woman to command the ISS (2022)

First woman radio astronomer in Australia

First professional astronomer in Mexico

Catalogued variable stars in globular clusters

First American woman to walk in space (1984)

Held record for most spacewalks by a woman (7)

Co-invented frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology

Invented Kevlar, five times stronger than steel

First woman with an EE Master's from MIT

Supervised construction of the Brooklyn Bridge

Pioneer of industrial engineering and ergonomics

Invented the windshield wiper (1903)

Received 49 patents for her inventions

First woman admitted to MIT

First African-American and Native American woman pilot

Invented device saving RAF pilots in WWII

President and COO of SpaceX since 2008

Founded Adafruit Industries

Co-designed the first solar-heated house (Dover Sun House, 1948)

First woman to earn an engineering master's from Cornell (1920)

First woman member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (1914)

First Hispanic woman to go to space (1993)

Invented the Coston flare system for maritime signaling

First woman in the world to earn an aeronautical engineering degree (1929)

NASA's first Black female engineer

Invented the electrothermal hydrazine thruster for satellites

First woman in the U.S. to earn a civil engineering degree (Cornell, 1905)

First African American woman to receive a PhD in mechanical engineering from Howard University (1995)

First to demonstrate CO2 greenhouse effect (1856)

Discovered Earth's solid inner core (1936)

Created first comprehensive map of the ocean floor

Nobel Peace Prize (2004) for environmental conservation

Set solo ocean depth record at 381 meters

Pioneered close-range volcanic documentation

Discovered Laetoli footprints proving bipedalism (1978)

Published landmark 1970 paper on western North American tectonics

Chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy

Developed first method to measure CO2 in seawater

First woman in the US to earn a PhD in meteorology (1949)

First to explain the cause of the Antarctic ozone hole

First woman president of the National Academy of Sciences (2016)

First woman to lead NOAA (2009–2013)

Second woman to earn a PhD from Johns Hopkins University (1893)

Helped capture first footage of a giant squid in its habitat (2012)

Discovered BRCA1 breast cancer gene

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2023)

First to clone HIV and map its genome

Invented Laserphaco Probe for cataract surgery

Discovered lambda phage

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2009)

Led effort to locate the Huntington's disease gene

Discovered chromosomal translocations cause cancer (1972)

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2009)

Part of team that first cloned insulin gene in bacteria (1978)

Discovered quorum sensing in bacteria

Conducted the Hershey-Chase experiment proving DNA is genetic material (1952)

Proposed the Lyon hypothesis of X-chromosome inactivation (1961)

Pioneered embryo manipulation crucial to IVF development

Discovered non-chromosomal genes in Chlamydomonas

Discovered KSHV/HHV-8, the cause of Kaposi's sarcoma (1994)

NASA's first African-American manager

Developed code for the Centaur rocket stage

First person to use a computer at home (1965)

Second African-American woman with a math PhD from Yale (1949)

Mathematical modeling critical to GPS development

Created Kismet, early robot recognizing human emotions

Co-founded Coursera, educating millions worldwide

Founded the Algorithmic Justice League

Co-founded Black in AI community

Developed the Randall-Sundrum model of extra dimensions

Director of MIT CSAIL

Proved 87% of Americans identifiable by ZIP, birthdate, and sex

Co-founded Affectiva, first emotion AI company

Author of bestselling 'Weapons of Math Destruction' (2016)

Developed Mars rover autonomy at NASA JPL

Created the Atlas of Protein Sequence and Structure

Authored foundational texts on statistical charting

Co-founded Mechanism Design for Social Good (MD4SG)

Co-invented Support Vector Machines (SVM) with Vapnik

Created the first intrusion detection model (1987)