Top Women in STEM
This list features 40 remarkable women who have shaped the scientific landscape, and who continue to build on this landscape today. Luminaries include groundbreaking biochemists, leading-edge technologists, and top environmental scientists. Leading influencers have served as professors, department chairs, and university presidents. A look at the women on this list, and a deep dive into their achievements, reveals a STEM field brimming with exciting possibilities and promising new horizons.
STEM refers to four frequently overlapping and critically important academic fields–science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. STEM takes an interdisciplinary approach to these subjects, providing a rigorous educational experience that connects physical, earth, and life sciences with practical, real-world applications. STEM leaders and influencers create lifesaving medical treatments, produce innovative solutions to global climate change, uncover new revelations about human genetics, and much more. Taken together, the areas of study that make up STEM teach us more every day about the technology at our disposal, the world around us, the universe beyond us, and the bodies that contain us.
The history of the hard sciences reveals a rigid male patriarchy. Women faced limited opportunities for advanced education and STEM careers before the latter part of the 20th Century. This is why it’s so fascinating and exciting to examine influence in the STEM fields through a 21st Century lens. Narrowing our focus to the time period between 2010 and 2020, we can see the profound impact that women exert today over vital STEM fields like biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering, medicine, and every other area where innovation, invention, and ingenuity meet.
This list features 40 remarkable women who have shaped the scientific landscape, and who continue to build on this landscape today. Luminaries include groundbreaking biochemists, leading-edge technologists, and top environmental scientists. Leading influencers have served as professors, department chairs, and university presidents. A look at the women on this list, and a deep dive into their achievements, reveals a STEM field brimming with exciting possibilities and promising new horizons. The achievements catalogued here are truly shaping our future, from the health of our environment and the capacity of our technology to our safety in public spaces and even our life expectancy.
In the interdisciplinary spirit of the STEM fields, our ranking of the Top Women is divided into eight major sub-disciplines, but as you read on, you’ll note that most of these influencers have knowledge and education rooted in multiple, overlapping areas of study. Here, we consider the contributions of the women who have had the most profound influence in the areas of science, technology and mathematics over the last decade.
Read more about our methodology.
Most Influential Women in STEM
2010-2020
Top Women Biologists
- #1
Jennifer Doudna
#727Overall Influence1964 - Present (60 years)Areas of Specialization: Biochemistry, Molecular Biology
Jennifer Doudna is a Li Ka Shing Chancellor Chair Professor for the Department of Chemistry and Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. In addition, she has been a professor at the University of California, San Francisco and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes. She earned a B.A. in biochemistry from Pomona College and a Ph.D. in biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology from Harvard Medical School.She is best known for her work with CRISPR. She, along with her colleague Emmanuelle Charpentier, were the first to suggest that genes could be edited or reprogrammed, now considered one of the most impactful discoveries ever made in the field of biology.
For her work in gene editing, she has received numerous prestigious awards, including the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Gruber Prize in Genetics, the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience and in 2016, she was runner-up for the Time magazine Person of the Year, alongside her fellow CRISPR colleagues.
- #2
Mónica Bettencourt-Dias
#92908Overall Influence1974 - Present (50 years)Areas of Specialization: Molecular Biology
Monica Bettencourt-Dias is the Director of Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência. A biochemist and cellular biologist, she is also the head of the Cell Cycle Regulation research group. She earned her undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of Lisbon, and graduated from University College London with a doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology. She split her postdoctoral time between the University of Cambridge and Birkbeck, University of London, where she researched kinases and scientific communication. She earned a Diploma in Science Communication from Birkbeck College in 2004, which arose from her work on improving how scientists communicate with the public.Her laboratory work has focused on complex subcellular structure and how they change during disease, development, and evolution, using complex cytoskeletal assemblies for study. For her research efforts, Bettencourt-Dias has won numerous awards, including the Eppendorf Young European Investigator Award, the Pfizer Award for Basic Research, and the Keith Porter Prize from the American Society for Cell Biology.
- #3
Emmanuelle Charpentier
#555Overall Influence1968 - Present (56 years)Areas of Specialization: Microbiology, Genetics
Emmanuelle Charpentier is the Founding and Acting Director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens and an Honorary Professor at Humboldt University of Berlin. She completed her undergraduate studies at the Pierre and Marie Curie University, which is now known as the Faculty of Science at Sorbonne University. She went on to earn a research doctorate from the Institut Pasteur.Charpentier is well known for her collaboration with Jennifer Doudna on decoding the molecular mechanisms of the CRISPR/Cas9 bacterial immune system. Her work on CRISPR has enabled scientists to edit the genome using Cas9.
For her work on CRISPR, she has received the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award, the Gruber Foundation International Prize in Genetics, the Leibniz Prize, the Kavli Prize and the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Novozymes Prize, the Bijvoet Medal of the Bijvoet Center for Biomolecular Research at Utrecht University, and most recently, the Scheele Award of the Swedish Pharmaceutical Society.
- #4
Jo Handelsman
#18633Overall Influence1959 - Present (65 years)Areas of Specialization: Microbiology, Bacteriology, Plant Pathology
Jo Handelsman was born in New York City. She is Professor of Plant Pathology, Vilas Research Professor, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor, and Director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, all at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Handelsman obtained her bachelor’s degree in agronomy from Cornell University in 1979, and her PhD in molecular biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1984.In 2010, Handelsman joined the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University, where her research focused on the microorganisms present in soil and insect gut. Handelsman is well known for coining the term “metagenomics” (genetic material present in an organism’s environment) and pioneered the use of environmental DNA in the study of antibiotic resistance. Also among Handelsman’s most critical findings is the revelation that the gender of a name on a science resume affects a professor’s inclination to hire, mentor, and pay applicants for a lab position.
- #5
Nancy Rothwell
#11768Overall Influence1955 - Present (69 years)Areas of Specialization: Physiology
Nancy Rothwell is the President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Manchester, the director of AstraZeneca, a global pharmaceuticals company, and a physiologist. She is also a trustee of Cancer Research UK and chair of the Research Defence Society. She earned her first class degree in physiology and a PhD from Queen Elizabeth College.Her early research efforts were focused on obesity, cachexia, and energy balance regulation. She is a vocal supporter of women in science and has provided visionary leadership in her roles as the president of the Royal Society of Biology. She was the first woman to lead the University of Manchester, a testament to her groundbreaking work and transformative leadership style.
Rothwell was named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and is a fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Society of Biology and the Academy of Medical Sciences. She was named one of the most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Women’s Hour and received the Royal Society Pfizer Award.
Top Women Chemists
- #1
Carolyn Bertozzi
#10261Overall Influence1966 - Present (58 years)Carolyn Ruth Bertozzi is an American chemist and Nobel laureate, known for her wide-ranging work spanning both chemistry and biology. She coined the term “bioorthogonal chemistry” for chemical reactions compatible with living systems. Her recent efforts include synthesis of chemical tools to study cell surface sugars called glycans and how they affect diseases such as cancer, inflammation, and viral infections like COVID-19. At Stanford University, she holds the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professorship in the School of Humanities and Sciences. Bertozzi is also an Investigator at the Howard H... - #2
Ada Yonath
#810Overall Influence1939 - Present (85 years) - #3
Lesley Yellowlees
#45970Overall Influence1953 - Present (71 years) - #4
Frances Arnold
#3660Overall Influence1956 - Present (68 years) - #5
Angela K. Wilson
#62708Overall Influence1967 - Present (57 years)Areas of Specialization: Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, Chemical Physics, Inorganic Chemistry
Angela K. Wilson was born on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She is currently John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Michigan State University (MSU), Director of the MSU Center for Quantum Computing, Science, and Engineering, and Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives in MSU’s College of Natural Sciences.Wilson received her bachelor’s degree in 1990 from Eastern Washington University and her PhD in 1995 from the University of Minnesota. After graduating, Wilson held a postdoc at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and a research assistantship at the University of Oklahoma. Wilson then held regular faculty positions with Oklahoma Baptist University and the University of North Texas, where she eventually held the titles of Regents Professor, Director of the Center for Advanced Scientific Computing and Modeling, and Associate Vice Provost for Faculty.
Top Women Computer Scientists
- #1
Daphne Koller
#1375Overall Influence1968 - Present (56 years) - #2
Nancy Lynch
#4885Overall Influence1948 - Present (76 years) - #3
Shafi Goldwasser
#895Overall Influence1958 - Present (66 years) - #4
Karen Petrie
#92694Overall Influence1980 - Present (44 years)Areas of Specialization: Constraints Programming, Artifical Intelligence
Karen Elizabeth Jefferson Petrie was born in the UK. She is currently Reader in the Department of Computing in the School of Science and Engineering at the University of Dundee in Scotland, as well as Associate Dean for Learning and Teaching of the same School.Petrie has stated that she first learned to program computers on a Commodore 64 when she was eight years old. Petrie received her bachelor’s degree in computer science in 2001 from the University of St Andrews, and her PhD in artificial intelligence in 2004 from the University of Huddersfield. She wrote her dissertation on the topic of Constraint Programming.
Following her doctorate, Petrie held a variety of post-doc positions, including Intern at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the US, Research Associate at the University of St. Andrews, and Research Fellow at the University of Oxford.
- #5
Wendy Hall
#5410Overall Influence1952 - Present (72 years)Dame Wendy Hall is a British computer scientist. She is Regius Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton. Early life and education Wendy Hall was born in west London and educated at Ealing Grammar School for Girls. She studied for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in mathematics at the University of Southampton. She completed her Bachelor of Science degree in 1974, and her Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1977. Her doctoral thesis was titled Automorphisms and coverings of Klein surfaces. She later completed a Master of Science degree in Computing at City University ...
Top Women Earth Scientists
- #2
Kristín Vala Ragnarsdóttir
#91421Overall Influence1954 - Present (70 years)Areas of Specialization: Sustainability Science
Krístin Vala Ragnarsdóttir was born in Iceland. She is Professor of Sustainability Science with the Institute of Earth Sciences and the Institute of Sustainability Studies at the University of Iceland. She also served as the University of Iceland’s Dean of the School of Engineering and Natural Sciences from 2008 until 2012. Vala was the first woman to serve as Dean of a School at the University.Ragnarsdóttir obtained her bachelor’s degree in 1979 from the University of Iceland, her master’s degree in 1981 from Northwestern University, and her PhD in 1984, also from Northwestern. Before returning to the University of Iceland, Ragnarsdóttir held the position of Professor of Environmental Sustainability at the University of Bristol in the UK.
In addition, Ragnarsdóttir is also Distinguished Fellow at the Bristol-based Schumacher Institute, former Vice President of the New Hampshire based Balaton Group, and Fellow of the London-based Academia Europeae, the Icelandic Academy, and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
- #3
Ceridwen Fraser
#171837Overall Influence1979 - Present (45 years)Ceridwen Fraser is an Australian biogeographer, currently serving as a research associate professor for the Department of Marine Science at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. She focuses her studies on ecology, evolution, climate change, and how they are all significant to the southern hemisphere, specifically at higher latitudes such as Antarctica. - #4
Isabelle Danis
#192257Overall Influence - #5
Marcia McNutt
#6636Overall Influence1952 - Present (72 years)
Top Women Engineers
- #1
Karen Bausman
#54862Overall Influence1958 - Present (66 years) - #2
Dawn Bonfield
#114499Overall Influence - #3
Benita Mehra
#124788Overall InfluenceAreas of Specialization: Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Construction Management
Benita Mehra was born near London into a family of Indian immigrants. She is based in London, where she works as an engineer in the public and private sectors. Mehra obtained her bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronic engineering from City University London.After graduating, she worked for the British Airports Authority (BAA), eventually assuming responsibility for several multi-million-pound construction projects, including new terminal buildings at Heathrow and the redevelopment of Stansted airport. While working for BAA, she obtained her master’s degree in construction management from Heriot Watt University. In 2005, Mehra received an MBA from Henley Business School.
From 2015 until 2018, Mehra was President of the UK-based Women’s Engineering Society (WES). In 2020, Mehra was appointed to sit on the Grenfell Tower Inquiry panel. This panel had been previously commissioned to investigate the 2017 Grenfell Tower catastrophe, in which a fire consumed the residential tower, killing 72 of its residents.
- #4
Eleanor K. Baum
#25811Overall Influence1940 - Present (84 years)Areas of Specialization: Electrical Engineering
Eleanor K. Baum was born in Poland. She is currently Dean Emeritus of the Albert Nerken School of Engineering at Cooper Union.As a young child, Baum and her family were forced to flee their homeland by the Nazi invasion and occupation of their country. After escaping from Poland to the Soviet Union, they traveled across Siberia to reach Japan. From there, the family immigrated to Canada, before entering the US and settling in Brooklyn, New York, where Baum, an only child, attended Midwood High School.
Baum received her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1959 from City College of New York, where she was the only woman in her class. Baum went on to earn her PhD in engineering in 1965 from the Polytechnic Institute of New York (now the New York University Tandon School of Engineering). After obtaining her doctorate, Baum worked in the aerospace industry, notably for Sperry Rand Corporation and General Instrument Corporation.
- #5
Susan Krumdieck
#82179Overall InfluenceAreas of Specialization: Energy Transition Engineering, Antimicrobial Coatings
Susan Krumdieck was born in New Zealand. She is currently Professor of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.Krumdieck received her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1983 from Colorado State University, and her master’s degree in energy systems in 1989 from Arizona State University. She then obtained her PhD in mechanical engineering in 1999 from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Krumdieck joined the faculty of the University of Canterbury in 2000. Krumdieck’s research focuses on ways to reduce fossil-fuel consumption by means of the development of innovative engineering methods and adaptive technologies. She has paid special attention to oil-supply problems arising in connection with transportation systems and urban planning.
Top Women Mathematicians
- #1
Ingrid Daubechies
#1650Overall Influence1954 - Present (70 years) - #2
Caroline Klivans
#67672Overall Influence - #3
Carola-Bibiane Schönlieb
#43261Overall Influence1979 - Present (45 years) - #4
Celia Hoyles
#47491Overall Influence1946 - Present (78 years)Areas of Specialization: Mathematics Education, Mathematics Policy, Applied Mathematics
Celia Mary Hoyles (née French) was born in Chigwell, Essex, a small town in the UK located about 20 miles northeast of London. She is Professor of Mathematics Education at UCL Institute of Education (UCL), as well as in that university’s Institute of Education.After graduating from Loughton County High School in 1964, French (as she was then known) attended the University of Manchester, where she received her bachelor’s degree in 1967, with a First Class Honours degree in Mathematics. Upon graduation from university, French taught mathematics at a high school in London’s East End. In 1969, she married Martin Hoyles (the couple later divorced).
While still teaching in London, Celia Hoyles began taking classes part-time at the University of London (now UCL), from which she received a Post-Graduate Certification of Education with distinction in 1971. The following year, Hoyles began teaching as a Senior Lecturer at the Polytechnic of North London, while continuing her part-time graduate studies. In 1973, the University of London awarded her the Master of Education degree with distinction.
- #5
Maryam Mirzakhani
#4076Overall Influence1977 - 2017 (40 years)
Top Women in Medicine
- #1
Diana Zuckerman
#11389Overall Influence1950 - Present (74 years)Diana M. Zuckerman is an American health policy analyst who focuses on the implications of policies for public health and patients’ health. She specializes in national health policy, particularly in women’s health and the safety and effectiveness of medical products. She is the President of the National Center for Health Research and the Cancer Prevention and Treatment Fund. - #2
Joanne Liu
#10694Overall Influence1965 - Present (59 years)Joanne Liu is a Canadian pediatric emergency medicine physician, Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Montreal, Professor of Clinical Medicine at McGill University, and the previous International President of Médecins sans Frontières . She was elected president during MSF’s International General Assembly in June 2013. - #3
Sally Davies
#8176Overall Influence1949 - Present (75 years)Dame Sally Claire Davies is a British physician. She was the Chief Medical Officer from 2010 to 2019 and Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Health from 2004 to 2016. She worked as a clinician specialising in the treatment of diseases of the blood and bone marrow. She is now Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, appointed on 8 February 2019, with effect from 8 October 2019. She is one of the founders of the National Institute for Health and Care Research. - #5
Pauline Byakika
#125598Overall Influence1974 - Present (50 years)Pauline Byakika–Kibwika , is a Ugandan specialist physician, internist, epidemiologist, academic and researcher, who serves as an Associate Professor of Medicine at Makerere University College of Health Sciences. From 2017 until 2019, she served as the Vice President of the Uganda Medical Association, a professional industry association, that champions medical doctors’ interests in the county.
Top Women Physicists
- #1
Lisa Randall
#2582Overall Influence1962 - Present (62 years) - #2
Jocelyn Bell Burnell
#1130Overall Influence1943 - Present (81 years)Areas of Specialization: Astrophysics, Radio Pulsars
Jocelyn Bell Burnell currently holds the title of Visiting Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford. Previously, she has held professorial and administrative roles at the University of Bath, Princeton University, the Open University, UCL Institute of Education, and University of Southampton. She was also president of the Royal Astronomical Society, president of the Institute of Physics, worked on the Interplanetary Scintillation Array, and was project manager for the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. Native to Northern Ireland, Burnell earned her BS in natural philosophy at University of Glasgow in 1965, and her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1969.Burnell is quite famous for discovering the first radio pulsars while still a graduate student in 1967. While Burnell’s name was included among the five authors of the paper that won the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics, Bell did not receive a prize or recognition from the committee; this has been a point of controversy, though Burnell does not herself seem to take issue with it. Given her presence at so many major institutions, both inside and outside of academia, Burnell’s influence in astrophysics is a fundamental one. Her role in advancing our knowledge of pulsars, as well as the application of radio telescopes, has guided the field into the twenty-first century.
- #3
Sabine Hossenfelder
#9286Overall Influence1976 - Present (48 years)Areas of Specialization: Theorectical Physics, Quantum Gravity
Sabine Hossenfelder is currently a Research Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, and heads the Analog Systems for Gravity Duals group. She was previously a professor at Nordita in Stockholm, Sweden, and has held fellowships at University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of Arizona. Hossenfelder completed her BS in mathematics at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany in 1997, and stayed there for her MS and PhD studies in theoretical physics, completed in 2003.Hossenfelder is well known as a prominent figure in popular science, especially in regards to theoretical physics and her primary research interest of quantum gravity. She has published books such as Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray and pieces in magazines including Forbes, Quanta Magazine, and New Scientist, and is involved with the annual Experimental Search for Quantum Gravity conference series.
- #4
Jenny Nelson
#28769Overall Influence2000 - Present (24 years)Areas of Specialization: Photovoltaic Cells, Multi-scale Modelling of Molecular Electronic Materials
Jenny Nelson is Professor of Physics at Imperial College London. Irish by birth, Nelson received her undergraduate education from Churchill College, University of Cambridge. In 1988, she obtained her PhD in physics from the University of Bristol. She wrote her dissertation on the optics of fractal clusters under the supervision of Michael Berry.Since arriving at Imperial College London, Nelson has been associated with the Blackett Laboratory in the Faculty of Natural Sciences, as well as with the Grantham Institute—Climate Change and the Environment.
Nelson is best known for her work on the basic physics of photovoltaic cells. More specifically, her research has focused on the detailed physical description of new kinds of materials for use in the more-efficient transformation of solar energy into electricity. These have included nanostructured (inorganic) electronic materials (such as nanocrystalline oxides), disordered (organic) electronic materials, and organic-inorganic hybrids.
- #5
Donna Strickland
#1937Overall Influence1959 - Present (65 years)Areas of Specialization: Intense Laser-Matter Interactions, Nonlinear Optics, Chirped Pulse Amplification
Donna Theo Strickland was born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. She is currently a Professor of Physics at the University of Waterloo. She is the first woman to hold this position at the University.She obtained her bachelor’s degree in engineering physics in 1981 from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. At McMaster, she specialized in lasers and electro-optics. She then received her PhD in physics in 1989 from University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, where she worked at the Institute of Optics and the Institute for Laser Optics. She wrote her dissertation under the supervision of Gérard Mourou.
In 1985, Strickland and Mourou published the technique they had developed known as chirped pulse amplification (CPA), a method for amplifying ultrashort laser pulses to a very-high intensity (petawatt level).Afterwards, CPA was developed by others as the basis for the widespread use of small high-power laboratory laser systems, known as “table-top terawatt lasers.”
