Admirable Women
@admirablewomen.bsky.social
Celebrating admirable women and girls (historical & contemporary). Their courage, resilience, perseverance, triumphs. Highlighting "firsts." Raising awareness of injustices and our struggles, obstacles, erasure, and more. #WomenInSTEM & in everything else!
🔭 Astronomer, astrophysicist & explorer Dr. Merieme Chadid: one of the world's first scientists to establish a major astronomical observatory in Antarctica. She set up the specialized automated telescopes & tested the optical turbulence of the atmosphere.🧵 She was born #OTD in 1969. #WomenInSTEM
11 October is International Day of the Girl Child. A global moment to celebrate girls everywhere, amplifying their voices, actions, and leadership. The 2026 theme is: End child marriage and invest in girls’ rights! 🧵 Learn more:
International Day of the Girl Child | United Nations
The International Day of the Girl Child focuses attention on the need to address the challenges girls face and to promote girls’ empowerment and the fulfilment of their human rights.
un.org
Medical physicist Edith Quimby was one of the founders of nuclear medicine. Discovering how to use radiation to diagnose/treat diseases like cancer safely, her research transformed radiology from a dangerous, experimental guessing game into a precise clinical science. Died #OTD 1982. #WomenInSTEM
Chemist Dr. Carolyn Bertozzi is widely celebrated for founding & pioneering the field of bioorthogonal chemistry. She shared the 2022 #Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry." 🧵 She was born #OTD in 1966. #WomenInSTEM #Chemistry 🧪
Mary Golda Ross is the first-known #NativeAmerican female engineer & a key pioneer of the US Space Race. #WorldSpaceWeek🚀 A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, she spent >3 decades performing aerospace design & engineering work laying the groundwork for modern interplanetary exploration. #WomenInSTEM 🧵
Engineer & cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman to fly in space in Vostok 6. She was just 26. #WorldSpaceWeek🚀 The only woman to ever fly a solo space mission. She spent 3 days alone in space & orbited the Earth 48 times...inside the little pod in the pic. Extraordinary. #WomenInSTEM
Astronaut Eileen Collins was the first female Space Shuttle pilot. #WorldSpaceWeek🚀 She piloted the Space Shuttle Discovery during mission STS-63 (1995), a mission that included the first-ever rendezvous between a US Space Shuttle and the Russian space station Mir. #WomenInSTEM
Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe died #OTD in 1973. The original #soul sister & "Godmother of Rock & Roll" influenced many including Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley & Jerry Lee Lewis. 😮 Great balls of fire! #MusicHistory #Music
Congratulations to Navi Pillay! She was awarded the #Nobel Peace Prize this morning. The South African #HumanRights rights lawyer & jurist won "for her efforts to promote peace & international law." A life-long dedication to ensuring war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide are prosecuted.
Nobel Peace Prize goes to South African human rights pioneer Navi Pillay | CNN
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Navi Pillay led the UN commission that concluded Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed he deserves to win. Fo...
cnn.com
Engineer, physicist & NASA astronaut Sally Ride was the first American woman in space, 1983. #WorldSpaceWeek 🚀 + Wrote/co-wrote 7 books to help encourage children to study #science + Co-founded Sally Ride Science to inspire young people in STEM & promote STEM literacy #WomenInSTEM
In 2022, planetary geologist & NASA astronaut Dr. Jessica Watkins became the first Black woman to serve on a long-duration International Space Station mission. She spent 170 days in orbit executing vital medical, biological, and physical sciences experiments. #WorldSpaceWeek🚀 #WomenInSTEM
Ophthalmologist Dr. Agatha Aboe led the medical campaign in Ghana to eliminate trachoma (leading infectious cause of preventable blindness globally). It worked. Ghana became the 1st country in sub-Saharan Africa to eliminate the disease, 2018. #WorldSightDay #WomenInSTEM
Bacteriological chemist & refrigeration engineer Dr. Mary Engle Pennington, the "Ice Woman," revolutionized food safety by inventing the "cold chain." Her groundbreaking work on continuous refrigeration kept perishable food fresh from harvest to consumer. She was born #OTD in 1872. 🧵 #WomenInSTEM
Thank you for leading the team that wrote the onboard software for the Apollo missions, guiding Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to a safe landing on the moon. Yours is an amazing legacy & everyone should know your name. Goodnight and godspeed, Margaret Hamilton. 🕯️
Margaret Hamilton, Whose Software Guided the Apollo Missions, Has Died (Gift Article)
Margaret Hamilton, the first female programmer hired to work on the space project at M.I.T., was 90.
nytimes.com
Congratulations to Anne Carson! She was awarded the #Nobel Prize in Literature this morning! 🥳 The Canadian poet and essayist won "for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature." #LitSky #Canada
Canadian Poet Anne Carson Is Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature (Gift Article)
The writer joins a list of laureates that includes Toni Morrison, Samuel Beckett and Bob Dylan.
nytimes.com
Remembering Dr. Janice Voss during #WorldSpaceWeek 🚀 & #BreastCancerAwarenessMonth. An engineer & astronaut, she served as a mission specialist on 5 Shuttle missions & was Science Director for NASA's Kepler Space Observatory. #WomenInSTEM She was born #OTD in 1956 & died of #breastcancer in 2012.
Space engineer Katherine Bennell-Pegg was the first astronaut to train under the Australian flag, 2024. #WorldSpaceWeek🚀 She serves as Director of Space Technology at the Australian Space Agency, leading projects including their upcoming lunar rover. #WomenInSTEM #Australia
My daughters studied Molecular Biology under Jennifer Doudna at Berkeley. Now one of them is Scientist/Engineer III in Genomics/Computational Biology at U. of Washington Seattle. Sorry to brag but I'm pretty proud.
#OTD in 2020, Emmanuelle Charpentier & Jennifer Doudna won the #Nobel Prize in #Chemistry "for the development of a method for genome editing" (referring to their groundbreaking work on the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors). They were the first all-female team to win a Nobel in science. #WomenInSTEM
#OTD in 2006, Anna Politkovskaya--Russian investigative journalist & human rights defender--was murdered in her apt building in Moscow. #PressFreedom She exposed state corruption, opposed the Chechen conflict & wrote "Putin's Russia," a book critical of his rise to power & authoritarian shift.
Astronaut, neurologist, and photographer Dr. Roberta Bondar was #Canada's first female astronaut (1992). #WorldSpaceWeek 🚀 The world's first neurologist in space, she is globally recognized for her contributions to space medicine. #WomenInSTEM robertabondar.com
Biochemist Dr. Florence Seibert developed the Purified Protein Derivative in the 1930s that standardized tuberculosis testing worldwide by 1952. Before her work, TB skin tests were inconsistent/unreliable.It remains the basis for the TB skin test used today. Born #OTD in 1897. #WomenInSTEM
Taikonaut Dr. Liu Yang was the first Chinese woman to travel into space, 2012. #WorldSpaceWeek🚀 In 2022, Liu returned to orbit on Shenzhou 14, helping build the Tiangong Space Station & performing a historic spacewalk. She is also a military transport pilot. She was born #OTD in 1978. #WomenInSTEM
Pioneering neuropsychologist Dr. Muriel Lezak revolutionized how we understand & treat brain trauma. Her landmark textbook "Neuropsychological Assessment" (1976) became is widely regarded as the foundational text in clinical #neuropsychology. She died #OTD in 2021 at the age of 94. #WomenInSTEM
Muriel Lezak, Leading Authority on Brain Injuries, Dies at 94 (Gift Article)
A neuropsychologist, she wrote a textbook that became an essential guide to describing and evaluating brain damage and dysfunction.
nytimes.com
Astronaut, pilot & engineer Samantha Cristoforetti: the first Italian woman in space, 2014. #WorldSpaceWeek🚀 She holds the record for the longest uninterrupted spaceflight by a European astronaut & brewed the first espresso in space. #WomenInSTEM #Italy 📷 : Coolest #coffee break in history!
NASA astronaut & biochemistry researcher Peggy Whitson holds the US space endurance record. Cumulatively, she spent 695 days in #space--the equivalent of a hypothetical round trip to Mars. First woman NASA Chief Astronaut, 2009. #WomenInSTEM #WorldSpaceDay 🚀
#OTD in 2009 biologist Dr. Carolyn Greider & biochemist Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn shared the #Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (w/J. Szostak) for discovering of telomerase & how chromosomes are protected by telomeres. Monumental implications for the #aging & #cancer research fields. #WomenInSTEM
#OTD in 2015, Chinese pharmaceutical chemist & malariologist Tu Youyou won the #Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria." The therapy saved millions of lives—particularly across Asia, Africa, and South America. #wow #WomenInSTEM
Physical chemist Ruth Benerito died #OTD in 2013. She pioneered a key chemical process, cross-linking, which led to wrinkle-resistant cotton fabrics. It transformed the cotton industry & helped save it from competition w/synthetic fibers. #WomenInSTEM She held >50 patents. #inventor
