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List of female scientists in the 20th century facts for kids

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Marie Curie c1920
Marie Curie (1867–1934), two time Nobel Laureate

This is a historical list dealing with women scientists in the 20th century. During this time period, women working in scientific fields were rare. Women at this time faced barriers in higher education and often denied access to scientific institutions; in the Western world, the first-wave feminist movement began to break down many of these barriers.

Anthropology

Margaret Mead (1901-1978)
Margaret Mead

Archaeology

Birgit Arrhenius 2011
Birgit Arrhenius
  • Sonia Alconini (born 1965), Bolivian archaeologist of the Formative Period of the Lake Titicaca basin
  • Birgit Arrhenius (born 1932), Swedish archaeologist
  • Dorothea Bate (1878–1951), British archaeologist and pioneer of archaeozoology.
  • Alex Bayliss British archaeologist
  • Crystal Bennett (1918–1987), British archaeologist whose research focused on Jordan
  • Zeineb Benzina Tunisian archeologist
  • Jole Bovio Marconi (1897–1986), Italian archaeologist and prehistorian
  • Juliet Clutton-Brock (1933–2015), British zooarchaeologist who specialized in domestic animals
  • Dorothy Charlesworth (1927–1981), British archaeologist and expert on Roman glass
  • Lily Chitty (1893–1979), British archaeologist who specialized in the prehistoric history of Wales and the [west of England]
  • Mary Kitson Clark (1905–2005), British archaeologist best known for her work on the Roman-British in Northern England
  • Bryony Coles (born 1946) British prehistoric archaeologist
  • Alana Cordy-Collins (1944–2015), American archaeologist specializing in Peruvian prehistory
  • Rosemary Cramp (born 1929), British archaeologist whose research focuses on Anglo-Saxons in Britain
  • Joan Breton Connelly American classical archaeologist
  • Margaret Conkey (born 1943), American archaeologist
  • Hester A. Davis, (1930–2014), American archaeologist who was instrumental in establishing public policy and ethical standards
  • Frederica de Laguna (1906–2004), American archaeologist best known for her work on the archaeology of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska
  • Kelly Dixon, American archaeologist specializing in the American West
  • Janette Deacon (born 1939), South African archaeologist specializing in rock art conservation
  • Elizabeth Eames (1918–2008), British archaeologist who was an expert on medieval tiles
  • Anabel Ford (born 1951), American archaeologist
  • Aileen Fox (1907–2005), British archaeologist known excavating prehistoric and Roman sites throughout the United Kingdom
  • Alison Frantz (1903–1995), American archaeological photographer and Byzantine scholar
  • Honor Frost (1917–2010), Turkish archaeologist who specialized in underwater archaeology
  • Perla Fuscaldo (born 1941), Argentine egyptologist
  • Elizabeth Baldwin Garland, American archaeologist
  • Kathleen K. Gilmore (1914–2010), American archaeologist known for her research in Spanish colonial archaeology
  • Dorothy Garrod (1892–1968), British archaeologist who specialized in the Palaeolithic period
  • Roberta Gilchrist (born 1965), Canadian archaeologist specializing in medieval Britain
  • Marija Gimbutas (1921–1994), Lithuanian archaeologist (Kurgan hypothesis)
  • Hetty Goldman (1881–1972), American archaeologist and one of the first female archaeologists to conduct excavations in the Middle East and Greece
  • Audrey Henshall (born 1927), British archaeologist and prehistorian
  • Corinne Hofman (born 1959), Dutch archaeologist
  • Cynthia Irwin-Williams (1936–1990), American archaeologist of the prehistoric Southwest
  • Wilhelmina Feemster Jashemski (1910–2007), American archaeologist who specialized in the ancient site of Pompei
  • Margaret Ursula Jones (1916–2001), British archaeologist best known for directing Britain's largest archaeological excavation at Mucking, Essex
  • Rosemary Joyce (born 1956), American archaeologist who uncovered chocolate's archaeological record and studies Honduran pre-history
  • Kathleen Kenyon (1906–1978), British archaeologist known for her research on the Neolothic culture in Egypt and Mesopotamia
  • Alice Kober (1906–1950), American classical archaeologist best known for her research that led to the deciphering of Linear B
  • Kristina Killgrove (born 1977), American bioarchaeologist
  • Winifred Lamb (1894–1963), British archaeologist
  • Mary Leakey (1913–1996), British archaeologist known for discovering Proconsul remains which are now believed to be human's ancestor
  • Li Liu (archaeologist) (born 1953), Chinese-American archaeologist specializing in Neolithic and Bronze Age China
  • Anna Marguerite McCann (1933–2017), American archaeologist known for her work in underwater archaeology
  • Isabel McBryde (born 1934), Australian archaeologist
  • Betty Meehan (born 1933), Australian anthropologist and archaeologist
  • Audrey Meaney (born 1931), British archaeologist and expert on Anglo-Saxon England
  • Margaret Murray (1863–1963), British-Indian Egyptologist and the first woman to be appointed a lecturer in archaeology in the United Kingdom
  • Bertha Parker Pallan (1907–1978), American archaeologist known for being the first female Native American archaeologist
  • Tatiana Proskouriakoff (1909–1985), Russian-American archaeologist who contributed significantly to deciphering the Maya hieroglyphs.
  • Charlotte Roberts (born 1957), British bioarchaeologist
  • Margaret Rule (1928–2015), British archaeologist led the excavation of the Tudor Warship Mary Rose'
  • Elisabeth Ruttkay, (1926–2009), Austrian Neolithic and Bronze Age specialist
  • Hanna Rydh (1891–1964), Swedish archaeologist and prehistorian
  • Elizabeth Slater (1946–2014), British archaeologist who specialized in archaeometallurgy
  • Julie K. Stein, Researches prehistoric humans in the Pacific Northwest
  • Hoang Thi Than (born 1944), Vietnamese geological engineer and archaeologist
  • Birgitta Wallace (born 1944), Swedish–Canadian archaeologist whose research focuses on Norse migration to North America.
  • Zheng Zhenxiang (born 1929), Chinese archaeologist and Bronze Age specialist

Astronomy

Biology

Barbara McClintock (1902-1992) shown in her laboratory in 1947
Barbara McClintock

Chemistry

Alicia Augusta Ball
Alice Ball

Geology

Inge Lehman
Inge Lehmann in 1932

Mathematics or computer science

Commodore Grace M. Hopper, USN (covered)
Grace Hopper, computer scientist

Science education

Concepción Mendizábal
Mexican civil engineer, Concepción Mendizábal Mendoza (1893–1985)

Engineering

Medicine

Meteorology

Paleoanthropology

Physics

Maria Goeppert-Mayer
Maria Goeppert-Mayer
  • Esther Conwell (1922–2014), American physicist, semiconductors
  • Jane Dewey (1900–1979), American physicist
  • Cécile DeWitt-Morette (1922–2017), French mathematician and physicist
  • Louise Dolan (born 1950), American mathematical physicist, theoretical particle physics and superstring theory
  • Nancy M. Dowdy (born 1938), American nuclear physicist, arms control
  • Mildred Dresselhaus (1930–2017), American physicist, graphite, graphite intercalation compounds, fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, and low-dimensional thermoelectrics
  • Sulamith Goldhaber (1923–1965), American high-energy physicist and molecular spectroscopist
  • Gail Hanson (born 1947), American high-energy physicist
  • Inge Lehmann (1888–1993), Danish seismologist and geophysicist
Noether
Emmy Noether
  • Emmy Noether (1882–1935), German mathematician and theoretical physicist (symmetries and conservation laws)
  • Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (1921–2011), American medical physicist (Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine 1977 for radioimmunoassay)
  • Fumiko Yonezawa (1938–2019), Japanese theoretical physicist
  • Toshiko Yuasa (1909–1980), Japanese nuclear physicist

Psychology

  • Mary Ainsworth (1913–1999), American-Canadian developmental psychologist, inventor of the "Strange Situation" procedure
  • Martha E. Bernal (1931–2001), Mexican-American clinical psychologist, first Latina to receive a psychology PhD in the United States
  • Lera Boroditsky, American psychologist
  • Ludmilla A.Chistovich (1924–2006) Russian speech scientist
  • Mamie Clark (1917–1983), African-American psychologist active in the civil rights movement
  • Helen Flanders Dunbar (1902–1959) important early figure in U.S. psychosomatic medicine
  • Tsuruko Haraguchi (1886–1915), Japanese psychologist
  • Margaret Kennard (1899–1975) did pioneering research on age effects on brain damage, which produced early evidence for neuroplasticity
  • Grace Manson (1893–1967), occupational psychologist
  • Rosalie Rayner (1898–1935), American psychology researcher
  • Marianne Simmel (1923–2010), American psychologist, made important contributions in research on social perception and phantom limb.
  • Davida Teller (1938–2011), American psychologist, known for work on development of the visual system in infants.
  • Nora Volkow (born 1956), Mexican-American psychiatrist, director of NIDA
  • Margo Wilson (1945–2009), Canadian evolutionary psychologist
  • Catherine G. Wolf (1947–2018), American psychologist and expert in human-computer interaction
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List of female scientists in the 20th century Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.