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If you’re a female-identifying teen and you attend high school, chances are good that you take, or will take, a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) class. Physics, biology, and chemistry are the usual suspects. We’re writing to share some collective wisdom with you from our own high-school experience.
Malka Fisz Kolodny served as one of the first teachers in pre-State Palestine, at a time when teaching often involved counseling traumatized war orphans.
As the wife of Fritz Haber, the father of chemical warfare, and a scientist in her own right, Dr. Clara Immerwahr made the ultimate protest of her husband’s work by committing suicide.
In her work on Leguminosae (a family of plants that includes peas and legumes), Clara Heyn named several new species and helped scientists better understand the variety of plants native to Israel.
Few women have been both scientists and social justice activists in their lifetimes. Both of these roles are time-consuming and challenging, yet somehow Tikvah Alper succeeded as a distinguished radiobiologist and as a fierce opponent to the apartheid in South Africa.
Naomi Feinbrun-Dothan helped pioneer the scientific analysis of native Israeli flora and establish the study of botany and genetics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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.
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.
Having experienced the sexism rampant in higher education herself, Elga Ruth Wasserman guided Yale through the difficult process of becoming a co-ed university.
Astrophysicist Joan Feynman shaped our understanding of solar winds, auroras, and sunspots, and her battle to open scientific bastions to women transformed the field for those who followed.
Far ahead of her time, Vera Cooper Rubin theorized that galaxies clustered and moved in ways that defied the Big Bang Theory, and helped prove the existence of dark matter.
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.
Bessie Louise Moses made huge strides for birth control as a doctor, a teacher of medicine, and author of Contraception as a Therapeutic Measure in 1936.
Elsie Margaret Binger Naumburg put her research into rare South American birds on hold during WWII to aid a different breed of songbird: refugee and unemployed musicians.
Jessie Marmorston’s research into hormone secretion led to breakthroughs in our understanding of the ways stress can contribute to heart attacks and certain cancers.
From the 1930s through the 1950s, Lena Levine used her medical and psychological training to offer women advice on everything from birth control to intimacy issues.
