30 Remarkable Women in Science and Math

Mathematics, Science, Women
August 18, 2022

Many talented and smart women have limited opportunities to use their intelligence and talents, and their gender becomes an obstacle when they want to show their potential. Thankfully, we had so many great female scientists and mathematicians that bigoted hearts and minds couldn’t stop them from making important discoveries.

You might not know their names or faces, but those pioneering women in science and math changed how we live and think about the world. They have made major contributions to the sciences for centuries, and you’ll see evidence of their work everywhere, from our clothing to hospital X-rays.

Who are the greatest women in science and math ever lived?

Of course, it would be impossible to list them all. Still, these the most influential 30 women in science and math deserve recognition for their enduring contributions to the fields of math, science, technology, and engineering.

You should also check our “15+ Remarkable Women in STEM Who Changed the World” directory.

By the way, Rachel Ignotofsky has a great book called “Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World.”

Maryam Mirzakhani

Maryam Mirzakhani was an Iranian mathematician and a professor of mathematics at Stanford University. Her research topics included Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, ergodic theory, and symplectic geometry....

Mary Jackson

Mary Jackson was an American mathematician and aerospace engineer at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which in 1958 was succeeded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. She worked at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, for most of her career....

Hedy Lamarr

To get secret messages past the Nazis, Hedy Lamarr co-invented a frequency-hopping technique that helped pave the way for today's wireless technologies. For years, her achievement was overshadowed by her other career as a Hollywood star....

Lise Meitner

Lise Meitner was an Austrian-Swedish physicist who contributed to the discoveries of the element protactinium and nuclear fission. While working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute on radioactivity, she discovered the radioactive isotope protactinium-231 in 1917....

Katherine Johnson

Creola Katherine Johnson was an American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights....

Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale, OM, RRC, DStJ was an English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War, in which she organized to care for wounded soldiers at Constantinople....

Marie Skłodowska-Curie

A giant of science, Marie Skłodowska-Curie, conducted pioneering research on radioactivity, a term she coined. She discovered two elements, founded two medical research centers, won two Nobels, and invented mobile X-ray units (dubbed Petites Curies), saving countless lives in World War I....