In Nepal, where oral decay is the most prevalent childhood illness and adults fully expect to lose all their teeth as they age, Laura Spero established Jevaia Oral Health Care to provide sustainable, community-based rural dental care.
After recognizing a neglected epidemic causing severe pain to children around the world, Karen Sokal-Gutierrez founded the Global Children’s Oral Health and Nutrition Project (GCOHNP) to improve diet and dental care for children and their families.
After being stranded by a typhoon in an isolated region of Sub-Saharan Africa, Amy Lehman was driven to provide health care for the communities there by creating the Lake Tanganyika Floating Health Care Clinic/Water-based Aid, Value, Engagement.
Danielle Butin created the Afya Foundation to bring much-needed medical supplies to crisis-stricken communities, providing aid after the 2010 Haitian earthquake, the 2011 Japanese tsunami, 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, and the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone.
In 2005, while still an undergraduate at Brown, Beckerman co-founded Muso, an organization that works to eliminate maternal and child mortality in the developing world through a combination of health care and preventative medicine.
Rebuilding her life time and again after great upheaval gave Lis Kahn unique insight as she helped the Jewish community of New Orleans heal after Hurricane Katrina.
Physiologist Edith Bülbring was so frustrated by the unpredictable responses of smooth muscle tissue in the lab that she made them her life’s work, becoming one of the most respected experts in her field.
By studying both isolated and mixed populations in Israel, Batsheva Bonne-Tamir uncovered the genetic histories and relationships between long-separated communities.
Yehudith Birk’s investigations into the protein structures of legumes like soy and chickpeas led to vital discoveries about both the nutritional value of legumes and their potential for combatting certain cancers.
Although Olga Belkind-Hankin was a formidable pioneer and midwife in Palestine, her most visible legacy remains the land she helped her husband buy, which formed the basis of many of the first settlements.
As one of the chief nutritionists and dieticians of Palestine and the emerging State of Israel, Sarah Bavly had to improvise workable plans for everything from offering school lunches to feeding boatloads of refugees.
Immunologist Ruth Arnon and her long-time collaborator Michael Sela made unprecedented breakthroughs when they developed the first synthetic antigen and the first drug approved for treating multiple sclerosis, Copaxone.
Radiobiologist Tikvah Alper, who spent a lifetime questioning accepted theories and the established order, discovered that diseases like scrapie and mad cow replicated without DNA.
Sylvia Bernstein Seaman fought for women’s suffrage as a teenager, then became an important voice for second wave feminism as the first person outside the medical profession to write about breast cancer.
Using the lessons she learned as a doctor in South Africa, Eva Salber worked with poor populations in Massachusetts and North Carolina to improve public health and empower community leaders.
Showing incredible courage and ingenuity, Hadassah Bimko Rosensaft saved countless lives in the concentration camps and helped survivors recover from their ordeal.
Esther Rosencrantz was ahead of her time as a doctor and tuberculosis researcher, but it was her research on her mentor, Sir William Osler, for which she is most remembered.
Despite her tragically short career, Ora Mendelsohn Rosen’s biochemical research helped explain how hormones dictate cell growth, shaping our understanding of diabetes and cancer.
A co-author of Our Bodies, Ourselves, Esther Rome not only educated women about their health but led the fight for public awareness of the dangers of products ranging from tampons to breast implants.
A champion in two very different fields, Loren Galler-Rabinowitz took home the bronze medal for ice dancing in 2004, then competed in the 2011 Miss America Pageant as Miss Massachusetts.