Meeting the Challenge

Description

Throughout history, women have overcome tremendous odds to make lasting contributions to science. In Meeting the Challenge, Magdolna Hargittai shares their stories.

For centuries, women scientists have faced seemingly insurmountable barriers to success in their careers. Yet many have excelled in science, achieving some of the most important scientific breakthroughs in history. In her latest book, Magdolna Hargittai discusses over 120 such women scientists. The book details the lives and careers of women scientists from the past and present, from various parts of the world, and representing many different fields, including physics, chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine.

Among the pioneering women profiled in the book are Nobel laureate and astronomer Andrea M. Ghez, medicinal physicist and Nobel laureate Rosalyn Yalow, Rosalind Franklin, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, and COVID-19 vaccine pioneer Katalin Karikó. The book also includes vignettes on the ecologist and author of Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, the primatologist Jane M. Goodall, and many others. These women demonstrate that despite the persistent idea that "science is not for women," women can and do succeed in science, even if success often requires courage and perseverance.

Meeting the Challenge presents compelling human stories to inform and entertain readers and encourage those considering careers in science. By detailing the lives and achievements of many of the most important women scientists in history, the book makes a significant contribution to the history of science and provides role models for those interested in pursuing scientific careers.

About the author:

Magdolna Hargittai is a research professor of structural chemistry at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. She is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Academia Europaea (London) and holds a PhD, DSc, and Dr hc. She has researched and taught on the lives and careers of women scientists and is the author of Women Scientists: Reflections, Challenges, and Breaking Boundaries (OUP 2015). Dr. Hargittai and her husband, Istvan, have jointly published extensively on symmetry, science history, and conversations with famous scientists. More recently, they have written on the memorials of scientists in Budapest, New York, Moscow, and London. Dr. Hargittai's books have appeared in English, Hungarian, Russian, German, Swedish, and Korean.

Table of contents

Foreword (by Eszter Hargittai)
Preface
Acknowledgments

1 Astronomers
Sophia Brahe
Maria Cunitz
Elisabetha Hevelius
Maria Kirch
Caroline Herschel
Mary Somerville
Maria Mitchell
Williamina Fleming and the Women of the Harvard Observatory
Cecilia Helena Payne-Gaposchkin
Nancy Grace Roman
Vera C. Rubin
Jocelyn Bell Burnell
France A. Cordova
Andrea M. Ghez
2 Mathematicians
Elena Cornaro Piscopia
Laura Bassi
Maria Gaetana Agnesi
Ada Lovelace
Sonia Kovalevsky
Mileva Marić-Einstein
Emmy Noether
Rózsa Péter
Kathleen Ollerenshaw
Mary Winston Jackson
Karen K. Uhlenbeck
Maryam Mirzakhani
3 Physicists
The Loneliness of the Woman Physicist
The Radium Institute
Elisabeth Rona
Marietta Blau
Elisaveta Karamichailova
Berta Karlik
Marie Curie
Isabella Stone
Harriet Brooks
Lise Meitner
Leona Marshall Libby
Maria Goeppert Mayer
Antonia F. Prikhotko
Chien-Shiung Wu
Ruby Payne-Scott and other Australian Female Physicists
Rosalyn Yalow
Mildred Dresselhaus
Donna T. Strickland
4 Crystallographers
Kathleen Lonsdale
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
Rosalind Franklin
Isabella Karle
Pioneers of Data Banks
- Barbara Mez-Starck
- Olga Kennard
Ada Yonath
Carolina H. MacGillavry and M.C. Escher
Agnes Csanady and Quasicrystals
5 Chemists and Biochemists
Gerty Cori
Alice Ball
Ida Noddack
Irène Joliot-Curie
Klavdia V. Topchieva
Mildred Cohn
Gertrude B. Elion
Maxine F. Singer
Elena G. Galpern
Paula Hammond
Jennifer A. Doudna and Emanuelle M. Charpentier
Lynne E. Maquat
Joan A. Steitz
Katalin Karikó
6 Biologists and Biomedical Scientists
Zinaida V. Ermoleva
Barbara McClintock
Aleksandra A. Prokofieva-Belgovskaya
Rita Levi-Montalcini
Frances O. Kelsey
Anne McLaren
Christiane Nusslein-Volhard
Linda B. Buck
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi
Barbara M.F. Pearse
Elizabeth H. Blackburn
Carol W. Greider
May-Britt Moser
7 Physicians, Surgeons, and Nurses
Elizabeth Blackwell
Rebecca Lee Crumpler
Rebecca Cole
Elizabeth Garrett-Anderson
Louisa Brandbeth Aldrich-Blake
Florence R. Sabin
The Moscow Higher Courses for Women
Lina S. Stern
Medicine Women in London
- Annie McCall
- Jane Harriet Walker
- Elsie Inglis
- Lilian Lindsay
- Ida Mann
- Sheila Sherlock
- Margaret Turner-Warwick
- Cicely Saunders
- Melanie Klein
- Anna Freund
- Enid Balint
- Nancy Rothwell
Nurses
- Florence Nightingale
- Mary Seacole
- Theodora Turner
8 Inventors and Technologists
Hertha Ayrton
Kathrine Blodgett
Pioneers in Aviation and Space Travel
- Amelia M. Earhart
- Amy Johnson
- Valentina V. Tereshkova
- Svetlana E. Savitskaya
- Sally K. Ride
- Judith A. Resnik
- Kathryn D. Sullivan
Frances H. Arnold
9 Ecologists
Rachel Carson
Miriam Rothschild
Ayhan Ulubelen
Chulabhorn Mahidol
Jane Morris Goodall and Other Primatologists
YouYou Tu
Notes
Name Index