By Ms Brown, Head of Science

The first day of Science Week 2021 on March 8th coincides with International Women’s Day this year which got me thinking about all of the amazing women involved in science who somehow still go relatively unnoticed in history. We’ve all heard of Marie-Curie and Rosalind Franklin and their achievements are undoubtedly incredible but how many of us are aware of women like Kalpana Chawla and Elizabeth Anderson?

Kalpana Chawla was born in 1961 in India. She studied Engineering before later specialising in Aeronautical Engineering. Kalpana became an astronaut in 1995 and in her career travelled the equivalent of 252 orbits of the earth. Kalpana died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster which occurred on February 1 2003, when the space shuttle disintegrated over Texas during re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere, with the loss of all seven crew members.

She was subsequently awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honour, the NASA Space Flight Medal and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. But Kalpana’s achievements remain relatively unknown to the wider world.

Elizabeth Anderson was born in 1836 in London. In 1860 after being taught at home and private school, she decided she wanted to become a doctor. This was unheard of for a woman to do at the time and something many people would have considered offensive. She was refused as a student by all medical schools and had to receive private tuition by practicing doctors in secret. Once she felt confident enough to take the examinations to qualify as a doctor, she was then refused entry to any examinations. Finally, in 1865 she was allowed to have her name on the medical register as a practising physician.

When my daughter was born I wanted her to hear about as many amazing women as possible and her bedtime reading quickly became full of the stories of unsung heroines working without praise to make our lives better.

There are so many incredible but largely unreported stories about female trailblazers in science that deserve to be celebrated.

So I asked my colleagues to nominate their own unsung science heroines:

Dr Sheldon (Chemistry)

Dame Harriette Chick DBE – Alumna of our school and microbiologist, protein scientist and nutritionist, leading pioneering work on the treatment of rickets and founding member of the Nutrition Society. Read all about her here.  

Ms Motyer (Physics)

Susan Helms – Did you know she holds the record for the longest space walk? Read more about her here.

Dr Pearce (Biology)

Linda Partridge –  A geneticist who studies the biology and genetics of ageing and age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. She is also my scientific Grandmother (we’ve never met).  She was my PhD supervisor’s PhD supervisor! Find out all about her work here. 

Ms Cusworth (Physics)

Stephanie Kwolek – Referred to as a Chemist really – but also a materials scientist who developed Kevlar while at DuPont – this is a very strong material used in bullet proof vests, skis, fire fighter’s boots etc with an incredibly high Young’s Modulus (high materials strength).  More on her achievements here.

Ms Johnson (Chemistry)

Kathleen Lonsdale – A pioneering X-ray crystallographer and political activist, Kathleen Lonsdale was also one of the first two women elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1945. Read all about her here:

So this science week I’d encourage you to see which women you can find out about who are breaking down barriers and discovering amazing things about our world. Do share your findings with us, we’d love to hear about them.

Happy Science Week 2021!