The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
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List of the most influential female people in Chemistry,
#951
Chi Che Wang
1894 - 1979 (85 years)
Chi Che Wang , also known as Wang Chi-Lian, was a Chinese biochemist and college professor. Wang was one of the first Chinese women to make a career in American higher education and scientific research.
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Kathleen Lonsdale
1903 - 1971 (68 years)
Dame Kathleen Lonsdale was an Irish crystallographer, pacifist, and prison reform activist. She proved, in 1929, that the benzene ring is flat by using X-ray diffraction methods to elucidate the structure of hexamethylbenzene. She was the first to use Fourier spectral methods while solving the structure of hexachlorobenzene in 1931. During her career she attained several firsts for female scientists, including being one of the first two women elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1945 , first female professor at University College London, first woman president of the International Union ...
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Rosalind Franklin
1920 - 1958 (38 years)
Rosalind Elsie Franklin was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA , RNA , viruses, coal, and graphite. Although her works on coal and viruses were appreciated in her lifetime, Franklin's contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA were largely unrecognized during her life, for which Franklin has been variously referred to as the "wronged heroine", the "dark lady of DNA", the "forgotten heroine", a "feminist icon", and the "Sylvia Plath of molecular biology".
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Elizabeth Rona
1890 - 1981 (91 years)
Elizabeth Rona was a Hungarian nuclear chemist, known for her work with radioactive isotopes. After developing an enhanced method of preparing polonium samples, she was recognized internationally as the leading expert in isotope separation and polonium preparation. Between 1914 and 1918, during her postdoctoral study with George de Hevesy, she developed a theory that the velocity of diffusion depended on the mass of the nuclides. As only a few atomic elements had been identified, her confirmation of the existence of "Uranium-Y" was a major contribution to nuclear chemistry. She was awarded ...
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Margarete von Wrangell
1877 - 1932 (55 years)
Margarethe Mathilde von Wrangell, after 1928 Princess Andronikow, née Baroness von Wrangell was a Baltic German agricultural chemist and the first female full professor at a German university. Studies and early professional years Margarete von Wrangell originated from the old Baltic German noble house of Wrangel. She spent her childhood in Moscow, Ufa and Reval . She attended a German girls’ school in Tallinn. After passing the teachers' qualifying examination with honours in 1894, she gave private lessons in science for several years. She also occupied herself in painting and writing short stories.
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Maud Menten
1879 - 1960 (81 years)
Maud Leonora Menten was a Canadian physician and chemist. As a bio-medical and medical researcher, she made significant contributions to enzyme kinetics and histochemistry, and invented a procedure that remains in use. She is primarily known for her work with Leonor Michaelis on enzyme kinetics in 1913. The paper has been translated from its written language of German into English.
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Alicja Dorabialska
1897 - 1975 (78 years)
Alicja Dorabialska , was a Polish chemist. Life Alicja Dorabialska was born in Sosnowiec, Vistula Land, Russian Empire on 14 October 1897. She graduated from a high school in Warsaw in 1914 and then enrolled in the Physical-Mathematical Department of the Moscow Higher Women's Courses the following year, graduating in 1918. Dorabialska received her Ph.D. from the University of Warsaw in 1922 and studied under Marie Curie at the Radium Institute, Paris in 1925. Dorabialska was an assistant in the Institute of Physical Chemistry in Warsaw University of Technology from 1918 to 1932. Two years lat...
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Hilda Ingold
1898 - 1988 (90 years)
Edith Hilda, Lady Ingold was a British chemist based in Leeds and London. Her career was unfairly overshadowed by that of her husband. She failed to gain much public recognition, despite being an innovative chemist and partner to her husband in his work on organic chemistry. She was known as Lady Ingold following her husband's knighthood.
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Mary Elvira Weeks
1892 - 1975 (83 years)
Mary Elvira Weeks was an American chemist and historian of science. Weeks was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Kansas and the first woman to be a faculty member there.
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Maria Bakunin
1873 - 1960 (87 years)
Maria Mikhailovna Bakunina was a Russian-Italian chemist and geologist. Born in Siberia, she moved to southern Italy at a young age, taking up chemistry during her education. By the time of her graduation from the University of Naples, she was already a pioneering figure in stereochemistry and made a number of advancements in applied chemistry. During the early 20th century, she carried out a series of geological surveys in the region of Campania, identifying a number of ichthyol deposits for exploitation. With the outbreak of World War II, she continued her work at the University of Naples a...
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Mary Letitia Caldwell
1890 - 1972 (82 years)
Mary Letitia Caldwell was an American chemist. Growing up she valued education and strived to achieve. She was an instructor at Western College teaching chemistry. She was known for being unique and descriptive along with being family orientated. Maria was in a wheel chair due to muscular disability. Most of her work centered on amylase, a starch enzyme, most notably finding a method for purifying crystalline porcine pancreatic amylase. She spent sixty years doing this.
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Ellen Gleditsch
1879 - 1968 (89 years)
Ellen Gleditsch was a Norwegian radiochemist and Norway's second female professor. Starting her career as an assistant to Marie Curie, she became a pioneer in radiochemistry, establishing the half-life of radium and helping demonstrate the existence of isotopes. She was Vice President of the Norwegian Association for Women's Rights 1937–1939.
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Hertha Sponer
1895 - 1968 (73 years)
Hertha Sponer was a German physicist and chemist who contributed to modern quantum mechanics and molecular physics and was the first woman on the physics faculty of Duke University. She was the older sister of philologist and resistance fighter Margot Sponer.
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Maria Lipp
1892 - 1966 (74 years)
Maria Lipp was a German organic chemist. She was the first female doctoral student, professor, and ordinary professor at the RWTH Aachen University. Life Lipp was born in Stolberg as the daughter of Karl Savelsberg and Friederike de Nys. She was later adopted by the chemist Julius Bredt. In 1913, she started studying chemistry at the TH Aachen. She completed her diploma with distinction in 1917 and was the first female doctoral student at the TH Aachen. She completed her doctorate with distinction in 1918 and her habilitation in organic chemistry again at the TH Aachen in 1923. In 1925, she married Peter Lipp, a professor for organic chemistry at the TH Aachen.
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Agnes Pockels
1862 - 1935 (73 years)
Agnes Luise Wilhelmine Pockels was a German chemist whose research was fundamental in establishing the modern discipline known as surface science, which describes the properties of liquid and solid surfaces and interfaces.
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Dorothy Hahn
1876 - 1950 (74 years)
Dorothy Anna Hahn was a lifelong educator and American professor of organic chemistry at Mount Holyoke College. She was most known for her research which utilized the then newly developed technique of ultraviolet spectroscopy to study hydantoins.
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Martha Doan
1872 - 1960 (88 years)
Martha Doan was an American chemist whose contributions include research in compounds of thallium, three published work, and tenure as a professor and dean at various institutions in the US. Throughout her lifetime she received four degrees, a B.S. and master's from Purdue, a B.L. from Earlham College, and a Sc.D. from Cornell. She was a dean of women for two colleges, Earlham College and Iowa Wesleyan College. In addition to her involvement in higher education, she was involved with several national organizations that involved chemistry and science. She was awarded a certificate for Outstanding Service to Science in 1951.
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Lotte Pusch
1890 - 1983 (93 years)
Lotte Pusch was born on 7 August 1890 in Reichenbach/O.L. and was a German physical chemist. She was of the Protestant denomination. Her father was a District Court Director. Education Pusch visited secondary schools in Pleß, Glogau , and Görlitz before deciding to attend the Mädchen-Realgymnasium Chamissoschule school in Schönberg. She later attended the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität . During her first two semesters, she focused on mathematics, physics, and chemistry. In 1913, Pusch passed her university exams and began to study for her Ph.D. in physical chemistry. She earned her doctorate i...
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Sonia Cotelle
1896 - 1945 (49 years)
Sonia Cotelle, née Slobodkine , was a Polish radiochemist. Life and work Sonia Cotelle was born in Warsaw, capital of the Vistula Land, in the Russian Empire on 19 June 1896. She was married, but later divorced. She graduated from the University of Paris in 1922, where she majored in chemistry. While still a student she began working in 1919 as an assistant in the Institute of Radium founded by the Nobel Laureates, Marie Curie and her husband Pierre, in the university's Faculty of Science . Cotelle was in charge of the measurement service between 1924 and 1926, after which she was appointed as a chemist in the Faculté des sciences.
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Martha Annie Whiteley
1866 - 1956 (90 years)
Martha Annie Whiteley, was an English chemist and mathematician. She was instrumental in advocating for women's entry into the Chemical Society, and was best known for her dedication to advancing women's equality in the field of chemistry. She is identified as one of the Royal Society of Chemistry's 175 Faces of Chemistry.
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Fanny Rysan Mulford Hitchcock
1851 - 1936 (85 years)
Fanny Rysan Mulford Hitchcock was one of only 13 American women to receive their doctorates in chemistry during the 19th-century, and was the first woman to receive a doctorate in Philosophy of Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania.
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Lidija Liepiņa
1891 - 1985 (94 years)
Lidija Liepiņa was a Latvian physical chemist, Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Latvian SSR, professor, and one of the first women to receive a doctorate in chemistry in the USSR. Her research interests spanned several areas of physical and colloidal chemistry. Most of the works are devoted to the study of the mechanism of processes occurring at the interface between a solid and the environment. She was engaged in study of adsorption, various surface phenomena, corrosion processes, and formation of hydrides.
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Beebe Steven Lynk
1872 - 1948 (76 years)
By James Barham, PhD Beebe Steven Lynk continues to be a highly searched and highly influential chemist who paved the way for Black Americans in chemistry, particularly Black women. Lynk (née Beebe Steven) was born in Mason, a small town in western Tennessee lying about halfway between Jackson and Memphis. She is one of the first female, African-American, professional chemists in the US. Her early life and social background are poorly documented. For example, the educational backgrounds and professions of her parents are not known. Beebe Steven, as she was then known, obtained a degree in 1892...
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Mary Lura Sherrill
1888 - 1968 (80 years)
Mary Lura Sherrill was recognized for her achievements in chemical research, particularly the synthesis of antimalarial compounds, and for her teaching at Mount Holyoke College. In 1947, she received the Garvan Medal, an award for women in chemistry.
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Charlotte Fitch Roberts
1859 - 1917 (58 years)
Charlotte Fitch Roberts was an American chemist best known for her work on stereochemistry. Life Roberts was born on February 13, 1859, in New York City to Horace Roberts and Mary Roberts . Education and career Roberts attended Wellesley College in 1880. Wellesley made her a graduate assistant in 1881, an instructor in 1882, and an associate professor in 1886. In 1885 she spent a year at Cambridge University working with Sir James Dewar, a chemist and physicist. In 1896 she published The Development and Present Aspects of Stereochemistry. She obtained a PhD from Yale in 1894 and a post at the University of Berlin from 1899 to 1900.
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Rachel Lloyd
1839 - 1900 (61 years)
Rachel Lloyd was an American chemist who studied the chemistry and agriculture of sugar beets . She studied at the Harvard Summer School and earned her doctorate from the University of Zurich in 1886. She was the first American woman to earn a doctorate of chemistry and the first woman to publish work in a major chemistry journal.
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Isabel Bevier
1860 - 1942 (82 years)
Isabel Bevier was one of the pioneers in the development of the scientific study of women’s labor in the home, today known as "home economics". In 1900 she began developing the “household science” program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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Susan Hayhurst
1820 - 1909 (89 years)
Susan Hayhurst was an American physician, pharmacist, and educator, and the first woman to earn a pharmaceutical degree in the United States. Early life and education Susan Hayhurst was born in Middletown Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Quakers Thomas and Martha Hayhurst. She attended school in Wilmington, Delaware and excelled in mathematics. While a young girl, she worked as a teacher at country schools in Bucks County. Taking an interest in chemistry and physiology, she enrolled at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, and graduated with a degree in medicine in...
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Ayşe Saffet Rıza Alpar
1903 - 1981 (78 years)
Ayşe Saffet Rıza Alpar was the first female university rector in Turkey. She is also the second female chemist of the country after Remziye Hisar. Ayşe Saffet Rıza was born to Hasan Rıza Pasha on 17 April 1903. Her father was a general of the Ottoman Empire, the commander during the Siege of Scutari in the First Balkan War. Following the killing of her father in 1913, she was raised in the German Empire. She came to Turkey for studying in Kandilli High School for Girls. For university, she traveled once more to Germany to study chemistry in University of Hamburg. In 1932, she obtained her PhD.
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Laura Alberta Linton
1853 - 1915 (62 years)
Laura Alberta Linton was an American chemist and physician. Early life and education Linton was born in Mahoning County, Ohio, on April 8, 1853, the oldest child of Joseph and Christina Linton. The family were Quakers. The family farmed in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey before settling in Wabasha County, Minnesota. Linton graduated from the Winona Normal School in 1872, and went on to the University of Minnesota, from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry.
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Kathryn Grove Shipp
1904 - 1977 (73 years)
Kathryn Grove Shipp was an American organic chemist, a specialist in explosives, affiliated with the Naval Ordnance Laboratory from 1957 to 1970. In 1967, she was one of the six recipients of the Federal Woman's Award.
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Jenara Vicenta Arnal Yarza
1902 - 1960 (58 years)
Jenara Vicenta Arnal Yarza , was the first woman to hold a Ph.D. in chemistry in Spain. She was noted for her work in electrochemistry and her research into the formation of fluorine from potassium biflouride. In later years, she was recognized for her contribution to the pedagogy of teaching science on the elementary and secondary levels, with a focus on the practical uses of chemistry in daily life. She was awarded a national honor, the Orden Civil de Alfonso X el Sabio.
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Mary Frances Leach
1858 - 1939 (81 years)
Mary Frances Leach was an American chemist and professor of chemistry and hygiene. Early life and education Leach was born in Payson, Illinois, the daughter of the Reverend Cephas A., and Mary Ann Scarborough Leach. She studied at Mount Holyoke College after a stint as an elementary school teacher in Massachusetts and received her associate degree in 1880. She then moved to Michigan and taught high school in various districts until 1891. In 1893, she received her bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan.
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June Sutor
1929 - 1990 (61 years)
Dorothy June Sutor was a New Zealand-born crystallographer who spent most of her research career in England. She was one of the first scientists to establish that hydrogen bonds could form to hydrogen atoms bonded to carbon atoms. She later worked in the laboratory of Kathleen Lonsdale on the characterisation and prevention of urinary calculi.
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Katherine Alice Burke
1875 - 1924 (49 years)
Katherine Alice Burke was a British chemist and one of the nineteen signatories of the 1904 petition to the Chemical Society. Early life and education Burke was born in Surrey in 1875. She obtained her BSc. degree from her studies at Bedford College and later Birkbeck, University of London. She graduated in 1899.
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María Orosa
1893 - 1945 (52 years)
María Orosa e Ylagan was a Filipina food technologist, pharmaceutical chemist, humanitarian, and war heroine. She experimented with foods native to the Philippines, and during World War II developed Soyalac and Darak , which she also helped smuggle into Japanese-run internment camps that helped save the lives of thousands of Filipinos, Americans, and other nationals. She introduced to the public the well-known banana ketchup.
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Alice Emily Smith
1871 - Present (155 years)
Alice Emily Smith was a British chemist and one of the nineteen signatories of the 1904 petition to the Chemical Society. Early life and education Smith was born 18 June 1871, the daughter of Thomas Smith, Commission Agent from County Down, Northern Ireland.
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Milda Dorothea Prytz
1891 - 1977 (86 years)
Milda Dorethea Prytz was a Norwegian chemist. Early life and education Prytz was born in Leith, daughter of priest Anton Jakhelln Prytz and Milda Dorothea Olsen, and sister of goldsmith Eiler Hagerup Krog Prytz Jr. and Fascist politician Frederik Prytz. She grew up in Bergen, until she moved with her parents to Gloppen in 1904. She attended Bergen Cathedral School from 1908 to 1910.
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Mildred May Gostling
1873 - 1962 (89 years)
Mildred May Gostling , also published under her married name Mildred Mills, was an English chemist who completed research in carbohydrate chemistry. She was one of the nineteen signatories on a letter from professional female chemists to the Chemical Society requesting that women be accepted as Fellows to the Society.
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Sibyl M. Rock
1909 - 1981 (72 years)
Sibyl Martha Rock was an American inventor who was a pioneer in mass spectrometry and computing. Rock was a key person in Consolidated Engineering Corporation's mass spectrometry team at a time when mass spectrometers were first being commercialized for use by researchers and scientists. Rock was instrumental in developing mathematical techniques for analyzing the results from mass spectrometers, in developing an analog computer with Clifford Berry for analysis of equations, and in sustaining an ongoing dialog between engineers and customers involved in development of both the mass spectrome...
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Ruth Wheeler
1877 - 1948 (71 years)
Ruth Wheeler was an American chemist specialising in the field of nutrition and public education. Early life and education Ruth Wheeler was born on 5 August 1877 in Plains, Pennsylvania, to Jared Ward Wheeler and Martha Jane Wheeler . She was taught to read by her mother, and graduated from West Pittston High School in West Pittston, Pennsylvania. Her thinking was influenced by her Welsh grandfather, Rev. Dr. Evan Benjamin Evans, a minister concerned with feeding the poor.
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Annie Hutton Numbers
1897 - 1988 (91 years)
Annie Hutton Numbers was a Scottish chemist and academic. Early life Numbers was born on 6 March 1897 in Edinburgh to Maggie and Alexander Numbers. Her father was a joiner and cabinetmaker. She had one sister, Isabella, who was born about 1899. She attended Mrs Steele's Private School in Upper Gray Street in Edinburgh, then joined James Gillespie's High School in 1904, spending three years there. In 1907 she began her secondary education at Mary Erskine's Edinburgh Ladies' College until 1914.
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Elizabeth Herriott
1882 - 1936 (54 years)
Elizabeth Maude Herriott was a New Zealand scientist and academic. She was the first woman appointed to the permanent teaching staff at Canterbury College, now the University of Canterbury. Education Herriott was born in Canterbury in 1882. Her parents were David and Elizabeth Susannah Herriott. Herriott attended Christchurch East School and Christchurch Girls' High School, where she was head prefect in 1899. She won a scholarship to attend Canterbury College, and studied botany and chemistry there from 1900 to 1905. She graduated with a B.A. in 1904 and a M.A. in 1905. Her Master's research ...
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Olive Wheeler
1886 - 1963 (77 years)
Dame Olive Annie Wheeler, DBE was a Welsh educationist and psychologist, and Professor of Education at University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, now Cardiff University. Early life Born at the High Street in Brecon, Olive Wheeler was the younger daughter of Annie Wheeler, Poole, and her husband, Henry Burford Wheeler. Henry Wheeler was a master printer and publisher. She attended Brecon County School for Girls. She received an Honours Central Welsh Board Certificate in 1904. She attended University College of Wales, Aberystwyth and graduated with a BSc in Chemistry in 1907, and a MSc in 1911.
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Zada Mary Cooper
1875 - 1961 (86 years)
Zada Mary Cooper was an American pharmacist and educator. Biography Born in Quasqueton, Iowa in 1875, Zada Mary Cooper graduated from the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy in 1897 and became a registered pharmacist on March 9 of that year. Beginning as an assistant, she worked at the College of Pharmacy for 45 years, becoming an instructor in 1905, an assistant professor in 1912, and an associate professor in 1942.
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Rosa Bouton
1860 - 1951 (91 years)
Rosa Bouton was an American chemist and professor who organized and directed the School of Domestic Science at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 1898. Despite the lack of funding, Rosa Bouton worked to provide a course to teach young women about the realms of domestic science. As years passed and the demand for more courses and areas of study emerged, Bouton, as the sole instructor, continued to strengthen and build the department to provide such an education to these women.
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Nellie M. Payne
1900 - 1990 (90 years)
Nellie M. Payne was an American entomologist and agricultural chemist. Her research on insect responses to low temperature had practical agricultural and environmental applications. Early life and education Emily Maria de Cottrell Payne was born in 1900, in Cheyenne Wells, Colorado, daughter of James E. Payne Sr. and Mary Emmeline Cottrell Payne. Her father was superintendent of an agricultural station. She had two brothers, Amos and James. She earned a bachelor's and master's degrees in agricultural chemistry and entomology from the Kansas State Agricultural College, and a Ph.D. in 1925 from the University of Minnesota.
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Ida Noddack
1896 - 1978 (82 years)
Ida Noddack , née Tacke, was a German chemist and physicist. In 1934 she was the first to mention the idea later named nuclear fission. With her husband Walter Noddack, and Otto Berg, she discovered element 75, rhenium. She was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
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Hope Winch
1894 - 1944 (50 years)
Hope Constance Monica Winch was an English pharmacist and academic. Biography Winch was born in the vicarage in the village of Brompton, just outside Northallerton in North Yorkshire, where her father Reverend George Winch was vicar of the village's St Thomas' Church. Her mother, Elizabeth Maude Winch was the daughter of Thomas Buston Crofton, also from the village.
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Pauline Gracia Beery Mack
1891 - 1974 (83 years)
Pauline Gracia Beery Mack was an American chemist, home economist, and college administrator. Her research in calcium, nutrition, radiation, and bone density began during the 1930s, and culminated in work for NASA when she was in her seventies.
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