Women
in Science

February 11 is International Day of Women and Girls in Science.

Now more than ever, gender equality has been an important issue in today's world. Amidst the 'Time is Up' and 'March For Women' campaigns, the world, in fact, has achieved significant progress towards gender equality and women's empowerment in the last century. However, it is undeniable that greater tasks are still ahead of us. There is an urgent appeal to strengthened, focused, committed, and united efforts to securing a just and more tolerant world.

The United Nations (UN), along with the 192 governments across the globe addressed this core issue by incorporating gender equality and women empowerment to their '17 global Sustainable Development Goals' — acknowledging the numerous tangible benefits of gender equality in our global ecosystem. It has since declared February 11 as an 'International Day of Women and Girls in Science', which is set to end the bias and provide equal and greater opportunity for women and girls.

One of its goals is to increase representation and recognition of women and girls in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and maths (aka STEM), to encourage them to be actively involved in key global issues and to consider professional careers and practice in these fields. It seeks to ensure women's full involvement and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life (including science, health care). One way in achieving this is to explicitly incorporate women and gender into every objective of all international and domestic programs.

The International Day of Women and Girls in Science is certainly a positive undertaking. After all, science literacy is necessary for everyone. The contribution of women in the world are often misguided and overlooked. It is essentially and crucially important in today's age that we strive for equality. Our collective efforts vastly contribute to achieving sustainable economies that benefit the communities we all care for.

image: Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya / alonglastname.com

As we celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we look at just some of the amazing women and their ground-breaking achievements and invaluable contribution to science:

Mary Somerville

Mary Somerville, also known as the queen of 19th century science, is a pioneering science writer and scientist whose work in the field of astronomy led to the discovery of Neptune.

Marie Curie

The first scientist to isolate polonium and radium; she established the nature of radiation and beta rays. Her work led to the development of the X-ray and research into atomic particles.

Rosalind Franklin

British chemist Rosalind Franklin is best known for her role in the discovery of the structure of DNA, and for her pioneering use of X-ray diffraction.

Barbara McClintock

Barbara McClintock made a number of ground-breaking discoveries in genetics. She demonstrated the phenomenon of chromosomal crossover, which increases genetic variation in species. She also discovered mobile genetic elements, or "jumping genes," (which won her the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine) - showed that genes are responsible for switching the physical traits of an organism on or off.

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Rita Levi-Montalcini was honoured for her work in neurobiology. She was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (jointly with colleague Stanley Cohen) for the discovery of nerve growth factor (NGF) — which offered possible treatments for conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, infertility and cancer.

Chien-Shiung Wu

Chien-Shiung Wu is a nuclear physicist, also known as "the First Lady of Physics," contributed to the Manhattan Project - helping develop the process for separating uranium metal into U-235 and U-238 isotopes by gaseous diffusion. She made history with an experiment that disproved the hypothetical law of conservation of parity.

Mae C. Jemison, M.D.

Dr. Mae Jemison is the first African-American woman in space. By the time she was thirty-one Dr. Jemison had received a double-major in Chemical Engineering and African-American studies and had served as a doctor in the Peace Corps in Liberia and Sierra Leone. She had also made history when she was selected from a pool of 2,000 applicants and became the first black woman selected to be an astronaut by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Dame Jane Goodall

Dame Jane Goodall created one of the most trailblazing studies of primates in modern times. As a primatologist and anthropologist, she is considered to be the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, and is best known for her over 55-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees.

Jennifer Doudna

Jennifer Doudna led the discovery of the revolutionary gene-editing tool called Crispr. The technology has the potential to eradicate previously incurable diseases, but also poses ethical questions about the possible unintended consequences of overwriting the human genome.