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Maria the Jewess

Maria the Jewess was one of the founding practitioners in western alchemy, in the 1st–3rd centuries CE. She invented several types of chemical apparatus, ran a school of alchemy in Alexandria, Egypt, and was noted for her alchemical sayings. She is the earliest recorded Jewish woman to have published a book.

Jewish Women in Computer Science

From hardware to software, from developing new programming languages to revolutionizing applications, Jewish women have been part of significant projects on the cutting edge of computing in the United States.

Drawing of Zelophehad's Daughters

The Daughters of Zelophehad and the Right to Broadband Internet

Noa Gross

Noa and her sisters pushed for something which, at the time, wasn’t recognized as an inherent right. Today, we need to do the same with broadband internet access.

Google bike in front of Google campus in Palo Alto, California

Toppling the Tech Narrative: Examining Silicon Valley Privilege

Dahlia Soussan

I shadowed at Lincoln High School in eighth grade, and what I saw in six hours challenged my entire perception of Silicon Valley.

Topics: Schools, Technology
Close-up photo of computer code.

What a Coding Program Taught Me about Privilege

Ellie Klibaner-Schiff

As one of four white girls in my Girls Who Code Summer Immersion class of twenty, I was confronted by my privilege in a way that I'd never been before.

Topics: Activism, Technology
Emmy Noether and Martine Rothblatt

Female Heroes in STEM: Emmy Noether and Martine Rothblatt

Shira Minsk

Female leaders in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) are few and far between, and Jewish female role models in those fields are even harder to find. Emmy Noether and Martine Rothblatt are superheros whose hard work and intellect propelled them to defy the odds and make contributions to the world that will outlive them.

Hedy Lamarr

Discussion Guide for Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story

Larisa Klebe

The film Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, which premiered in theaters last November, explores the unusual and tumultuous life of Hedy Lamarr—a Jewish and Austrian-born Hollywood actress considered to be the most beautiful woman in the world.

Once Upon a Time

Agree to Disagree

Julia Clardy

My brother-in-law, Alex, is incredibly smart. He’s a Harvard-educated banker in his early thirties, and he genuinely loves to debate. His style of debate isn’t to make other people feel stupid, but it’s clear that he loves feeling like he has changed someone’s mind or broadened their perspective. I’ve realized, through many conversations with him, that this is something with which I struggle.

Kira Radinsky

Computer scientist Kira Radinsky earned a reputation for predicting the future when she developed technology that could anticipate cholera outbreaks and student riots based on data in old newspapers.

Sheyna Gifford

Sheyna Gifford’s passion for both scientific exploration and writing has enabled her to work for NASA in many different capacities, from science journalist to health and safety officer on a year-long simulated mission to Mars.

Laura Stachel

Stunned by the poor conditions in which Nigerian doctors were working, Laura Stachel created We Care Solar to offer hospitals “Solar Suitcases” that fuel reliable lights.

Anya Cherneff

A longtime opponent of human trafficking, Anya Cherneff found a new way to literally empower women in Nepal by founding Empower Generation to teach women and girls to become clean energy entrepreneurs.

Sivan Borowich-Ya'ari

Using Israeli innovations in solar technology, Sivan Borowich-Ya’ari created Innovation: Africa to bring more reliable electricity to developing communities throughout Africa.
Girl Playing Pac-Man

GamerGate: Why We All Lose

Lisa Batya Feld

Let’s face it, admitting you’re a gamer right now will probably invite more horror and social stigma than at any time since the 1980s.

Topics: Feminism, Technology

Gertrude Elion / Nina Fefferman

Scientists

Leaders in the Lab

Hedy Lamarr / Mayim Bialik

Actress-Scientists

Stars of STEM and Screen

Miranda Bloch

Miranda “Randy” Bloch not only served as a Marine during World War II, she was one of the rare women Marines to be issued flight orders, helping pilots and air crew train for radar bombing runs.
Irene Greif

Living by Their Own Codes

Sarah Weinberg

Women who make history rarely feel the need to adhere to others' narratives—and that goes double for Jewish women.  So it's not surprising that when Radia Perlman, architect of many of the routing and bridging protocols that make the modern Internet possible, discusses her childhood, she casually disposes of the standard geek-culture heroic origin story: "I did not fit the stereotype of the 'engineer.' I never took things apart or built a computer out of spare parts."  Irene Greif, a fellow computer scientist who brought ethnographers, anthropologists and sociologists into systems design through her field of computer-supported cooperative work, cheerfully admits: "I have a whole history of always choosing marginal roles and in marginal subjects of research and so on for myself."  Her work, though, has turned out to be anything but marginal. 

MIT’s Shafi Goldwasser wins “the Nobel Prize in computing”

June 15, 2013

MIT’s Shafi Goldwasser won the Alan M. Turing Award for her work in computer cryptography, which revolutionized internet security.

Henriette Avram, 1919 - 2006

She is remembered as a dynamic, inspiring leader, full of energy, writing and speaking internationally … making friends wherever she went.

Esther Wojcicki: A Jewish mother of the tech revolution

Preeva Tramiel

I sometimes direct tourists toward 'the HP garage,' which is marked with a plaque and gets photographed a lot. It is three blocks down the street from my house.

Judith Resnik in Space, September 8, 1984

Remembering Judith Resnik, the first Jewish American woman in space

Kate Bigam

Judith Resnik never showed any particular interest in space travel – but when NASA began recruiting women and minorities, she decided to apply anyway.

Topics: Science, Technology
Screenshot of a Conversation with Apple's Siri

Siri may seem Jewish, but she wont help you with family planning

Leah Berkenwald

Back in October, eJewishPhilanthropy ran an article by Leo Margul joking about a "Jewish update" to the Apple iPhone's automated personal assistant, Siri. "Jewish Siri" has all sorts of features to simplify the life of the modern Jew, like automatic sweater notifications so that everytime the weather dips below 75 degrees, Siri will notify your parents that you are indeed wearing a sweater. (Read more at The Jewish Week, via Rabbi Jason Miller.)

Registration for the 1954 TABS Conference with B'nai B'rith Girls at Freedom House

Joan Krizack wins Champion of Freedom Award for the Documenting Diversity Project

Ellen K. Rothman

In 1998, Northeastern University announced that it had received a two-year federal grant to “identify, locate, secure, and make accessible the most important and at-risk historical records of Boston’s African American, Chinese, gay and lesbian, and Latino communities.” Later that year, I met Joan Krizack, Northeastern’s University Archivist and Head of Special Collections, who had conceived the “Documenting Diversity Project.”  I could see immediately that this diminutive woman (who has been a member of the Jewish Women’s Archive Technical Advisory Committee since 2006) had a “tiger by the tail” and was not about to let it go.

"Top Secret Rosies": How female computers helped win WWII

Leah Berkenwald

Back before Microsoft, IBM, and Apple, the word "computer" referred to a person who computes.

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