Science and gender equality are both vital for the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals. Over the past years, people from all over the world have made a lot of effort in inspiring and engaging women and girls in science. However, women and girls of every age continue to be excluded from participating fully in science and it is still believed that men are the ones who should occupy themselves with science.
At present, less than 30% of researchers worldwide are women. According to UNESCO data (2014 – 2016), only around 30% of all female students select STEM-related fields in higher education. Globally, female students‚enrolment is particularly low in ICT (3%), natural science, mathematics and statistics (5%) and in engineering, manufacturing and construction (8%). (United Nations, 2021)
To achieve full and equal participation in science for women and girls, and further achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/70/212 declaring 11 February as the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.
According to UN Women, here are 7 women scientist who changed the future:
1. Tu Youyou
- The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2015
- Born: 30 December 1930, Zhejiang Ningbo, China
- Affiliation at the time of the award: China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing, China
- Prize motivation: "for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria."
A number of serious infectious diseases are caused by parasites spread by insects. Malaria is caused by a single-cell parasite that causes severe fever. Traditional Chinese medicine uses sweet wormwood to treat fever. In the 1970s, after studies of traditional herbal medicines, Youyou Tu managed to extract a substance, artemisinin, which inhibits the malaria parasite. Drugs based on artemisinin have led to the survival and improved health of millions of people.
2. Kiara Nirghin
Kiara was sixteen years old at the time of her win at the Google Science Fair. She is known as the sole founder of her project titled: "No More Thirsty Crops". In response to one of South Africa's worst droughts in 45 years, with the lowest ever rainfall since 1904 and in 2015, the country only receiving 66% of the annual average rainfall, did Kiara start her research.
SAPs absorb and carry about 300 times its weight in liquid relative to their own mass. When a SAP is cross-linked with polymerization, the product is water retaining hydrogels that act as a reservoir of collected water in the soil. However, these SAPs are not biodegradable, costly and full of acrylic acid, sodium hydroxide and other chemicals. Kiara developed a unique super-absorbent polymer that holds hundreds of times its weight in water when stored in the soil. It is biodegradable, inexpensive and free of harmful chemicals, unlike the manmade materials currently used.
The polymer, made entirely from waste products, improves the environment, increases the chance for plants to sustain growth by 84% during a drought and can increase food security by 73% in disaster-struck areas.
3. Katherine Johnson
- Born: Aug. 26, 1918
- Died: Feb. 24, 2020
- Hometown: White Sulphur Springs, WV
- Education: B.S., Mathematics and French, West Virginia State College, 1937
- Hired by NACA: June 1953
- Retired from NASA: 1986
Amongst her other achievements, when asked to name her greatest contribution to space exploration, Johnson would talk about the calculations that helped synch Project Apollo’s Lunar Module with the lunar-orbiting Command and Service Module. She also worked on the Space Shuttle and the Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS, later renamed Landsat) and authored or co-authored 26 research reports. She retired in 1986, after 33 years at Langley. “I loved going to work every single day,” she said. In 2015, at age 97, Johnson added another extraordinary achievement to her long list: President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honour.
4. Marie Curie
Marie Skłodowska Curie, born Maria Salomea Skłodowska (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934), was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. As the first of the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes, she was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first and the only woman to win the Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win the Nobel Prize in two scientific fields. She was the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris in 1906.
Under her direction, the world's first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms by the use of radioactive isotopes. In 1920 she founded the Curie Institute in Paris, and in 1932 the Curie Institute in Warsaw; both remain major centres of medical research. During World War I she developed mobile radiography units to provide X-ray services to field hospitals.
She named the first chemical element she discovered polonium, after her native country. She is the subject of numerous biographical works, where she is also known as Madame Curie.
5. Marcia Barbosa
Márcia Cristina Bernardes Barbosa is a Brazilian physicist known for her research on the properties of water, and for her efforts for improving the conditions for women in academia. She is a professor at UFRGS and a director of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.
A molecule of water – two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen – seems simple enough, but the properties of this mysterious substance have baffled scientists for generations. Throughout her career, Barbosa has sought to unlock the secrets of water's anomalies, initially from a theoretical perspective and then by focusing her insights on practical applications for medicine and the life sciences.
Barbosa's work has helped explain why many characteristics of water – the motion of its molecules, its reaction to changes in temperature and pressure – make it different from other liquids in vast and important ways, and how biomolecules such as DNA, proteins and fats interact with water within the human body. She has furthermore developed a series of models about the properties of water that have contributed to our understanding of water's interactions with biological molecules and geological processes.
6. Segenet Kelemu
Dr Segenet Kelemu is the Director-General of the International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE, Nairobi), the fourth chief executive officer and the first woman to lead that organisation.
Dr. Kelemu is a molecular plant pathologist. Following her post-doctoral work at Cornell University (USA), she joined the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT, Colombia) in 1992 as a senior scientist, and was later appointed Leader of Crop and Agroecosystem Health Management. In 2007, she became director of the Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA) Hub at the International Livestock Research Institute (Nairobi). Before joining ICIPE, she was Vice President for Programs at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA, Nairobi).
Her research focused on the elucidation of molecular determinants of host-pathogen interactions, development of novel plant disease control strategies including genetic engineering, biopesticides, pathogen population genetics and dynamics, endophytic microbes and their role in plant development. In August 2007, Kelemu decided to return to Africa, determined to contribute her experience in applying cutting-edge science to developmental issues, towards resolving the continent's problem. She accepted a position as the Director of the Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA) Hub. Under her leadership, the BecA initiative was transformed from a contentious idea into a driving force that is changing the face of African biosciences. BecA's research capacity, staff, facilities, funding, partners and training programs have expanded at an ever-accelerating pace.
7. Maryam Mirzakhani
Maryam Mirzakhani ( 03 May 1977 – 14 July 2017) 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. In 2005, as a result of her research, she was honoured in Popular Science's fourth annual "Brilliant 10" in which she was acknowledged as one of the top 10 young minds who have pushed their fields in innovative directions.
On 13 August 2014, Mirzakhani was honoured with the Fields Medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics. Thus, she became both the first, and to date, the only woman and the first Iranian to be honoured with the award. The award committee cited her work in "the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces".
2021 Theme: Women Scientists at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated the critical role of women researchers in different stages of the fight against COVID-19, from advancing the knowledge on the virus, to developing techniques for testing, and finally to creating the vaccine against the virus.
At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic also had a significant negative impact on women scientists, particularly affecting those at the early stages of their career, and thus contributing to widening the existing gender gap in science, and revealing the gender disparities in the scientific system, which need to be addressed by new policies, initiatives and mechanisms to support women and girls in science.
Against this backdrop, this year’s celebration of the Day will address the theme “Women Scientists at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19” and will gather together experts working in fields related to the pandemic from different parts of the world. (United Nations, 2021)
Conclusion
Our future will be marked by scientific and technological progress, which can only be achieved when women and girls are creators, owners, and leaders of science, technology and innovation. Bridging the gender gap in STEM is vital to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and for creating infrastructure, services and solutions that work for all people. United we can achieve great things! So let the racism about the women in science in the past and let's move forward.
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Reference list
Nations, U. (n.d.). International Day of Women and Girls in Science. [online] United Nations. Available at: https://www.un.org/en/observances/women-and-girls-in-science-day. NobelPrize.org. (2015). The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2015. [online] Available at: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2015/tu/facts/. Shetterly, M. (2000). Katherine Johnson Biography. [online] NASA. Available at: https://www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography. UN Women. (n.d.). Devoted to discovery: seven women scientists who have shaped our world. [online] Available at: https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2020/2/compilation-seven-women-scientists-who-shaped-our-world [Accessed 7 Feb. 2021]. UN Women. (n.d.). International Day of Women and Girls in Science. [online] Available at: https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/international-day-of-women-and-girls-in-science. unu.edu. (n.d.). Dr Segenet Kelemu - United Nations University. [online] Available at: https://unu.edu/about/unu-council/dr-segenet-kelemu [Accessed 7 Feb. 2021]. Wikipedia Contributors (2018). Marie Curie. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie. Wikipedia. (2020a). Kiara Nirghin. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiara_Nirghin [Accessed 7 Feb. 2021]. Wikipedia. (2020b). Marcia Barbosa. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcia_Barbosa [Accessed 7 Feb. 2021]. Wikipedia. (2020c). Segenet Kelemu. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segenet_Kelemu [Accessed 7 Feb. 2021]. Wikipedia. (2021). Maryam Mirzakhani. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryam_Mirzakhani [Accessed 7 Feb. 2021].
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