Imagine diving to the bottom of the ocean while pregnant. Dude, I feel like when I am pregnant, I won’t be able to even move or do anything. But today’s woman in STEM was literally on the ocean floor while pregnant.

Sources:

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/sylvia-earle

https://www.britannica.com/science/marine-biology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Earle

https://missionblue.org/staff_member/sylvia-a-earle/

https://www.uw360.asia/sylvia-earle/#:~:text=Living%20two%20weeks%20underwater,it%20was%20before%2C%20was%20changing.

https://www.uw360.asia/project-tektite-the-aquanauts-that-lived-in-the-sea/

Imagine going to work or school or whatever, and that's just normal. Men's bathrooms are everywhere, but you have to walk across the street at the very least to go to the BATHROOM. Now imagine trying to do groundbreaking research and dealing with that. Well, that's what Lise Meitner had to do when she was discovering Nuclear Fission.

Sources

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lise-Meitner

https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/lise-meitner

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Meitner

https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/biographies/meitner.html

https://www.nps.gov/people/women-of-the-manhattan-project-lise-meitner.htm

https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/profile/lise-meitner/

So we carved Pumpkins this weekend in celebration of fall, October, and all things spooky season. And you will never guess what Disha carved on her pumpkin.

It was a uterus…because there’s nothing scarier than being a woman. Well, that started me thinking about Women’s health, which led me to today’s Silenced Woman of STEM, a paleobotanist turned women’s health activist.

Sources:

https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/marie-charlotte-carmichael-stopes-1880-1958

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marie-Stopes

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-11040319

https://ocean.si.edu/conservation/gulf-oil-spill/what-are-fossil-fuels

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Stopes

Today’s Silenced Woman of STEM not only spent hours creating beautiful and scientifically accurate illustrations of the microscopic world, but she was also a self-taught naturalist, an acclaimed author, and an astronomer in a time when women were mostly banned from professional science. This is the story of Mary Ward. She published a significant amount of work, all while raising eight children. She also holds the unfortunate, morbid distinction of being the first person in the world known to have been killed in a motor vehicle accident.

Sources

https://www.herstory.ie/news/2020/2/11/mary-ward

https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/mary-ward/

https://www.whipplelib.hps.cam.ac.uk/special/exhibitions-and-displays/microscopy-in-print/microscopy-books-ward

https://exhibits.library.duke.edu/exhibits/show/2024sciencewomen/women/mward

https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/mary-ward-2/

https://cobbdefense.com/first-car-accident-history/

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/100347-first-road-traffic-death

https://offalyhistoryblog.com/2019/08/30/mary-ward-artist-naturalist-and-astronomer-a-woman-for-our-time/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15949449/

We will be taking a week break from SWOS to celebrate Durga Puja! Learn a bit about Hinduism and Bengali culture in this very special episode about Durga Puja!

Rita Levi - Montalcini created an entire laboratory in her bedroom when she was banned from her lab, she discovered a protein that changed how neuroscience is done, and won a noble prize all after surviving World War II. This is her story.

Sources:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10014200/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11490299/

https://www.nobelprize.org/stories/women-who-changed-science/rita-levi-montalcini/

https://civilrights.ku.edu/rita-levi-montalcini-md

Imagine moving to a different country by yourself at 18, getting a PhD by 26, and then decrypting the genome of one of the scariest viruses in the US at the time.

Flossie Wong-Staal was a pioneering molecular biologist and virologist whose work reshaped our understanding of HIV and AIDS. Born in China and later making her mark in the United States, Wong-Staal became the first scientist to clone HIV and map its genes, a breakthrough that opened the door to blood tests and lifesaving treatments. Beyond her discoveries, she was also a role model for women and immigrants in science, proving that persistence and vision can break barriers. Today, we will be exploring her journey, her groundbreaking contributions, and the lasting impact she left on medicine and society.

References:

https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/flossie-wong-staal

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe4095

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/human-t-lymphotropic-virus-type-1

https://ccr.cancer.gov/news/article/in-memoriam-flossie-wong-staal-phd

https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/flossie-wongstaal/

https://hivinfo.nih.gov/understanding-hiv/fact-sheets/hiv-and-aids-basics#:~:text=The%20abbreviation%20%E2%80%9CHIV%E2%80%9D%20can%20refer,lymphocytes)%20of%20the%20immune%20system.

https://www.cdc.gov/museum/online/story-of-cdc/aids/index.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flossie_Wong-Staal#cite_note-nyt20200717-22

Do you know who discovered climate change?

Most people would say John Tyndall, but that wouldn’t exactly be true. The actual first discoverer was a woman. But what's crazy is that she was almost completely erased from history. This is the story of Eunice Foote.

Sources

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/features/happy-200th-birthday-eunice-foote-hidden-climate-science-pioneer

https://www.aps.org/apsnews/2023/07/carbon-dioxide-atmosphere-eunice-foote

https://www.momscleanairforce.org/eunice-newton-foote/

https://www.schools.nyc.gov/learning/subjects/social-studies/hidden-voices/contentdetails/hidden-voices/2025/04/22/eunice-foote-the-nearly-forgotten-mother-of-climate-science

https://vitalsigns.edf.org/story/female-climate-scientist-youve-never-heard-should-have

https://climatepromise.undp.org/news-and-stories/worlds-largest-survey-climate-change-out-heres-what-results-show

https://www.natureandculture.org/climate-change-and-extreme-weather/?utm_term=what%20is%20climate%20change&utm_campaign=BTD+%7C+Power+Page+%7C+Climate+Change&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=2265980610&hsa_cam=21703171123&hsa_grp=169004252044&hsa_ad=713379801246&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=kwd-289419804&hsa_kw=what%20is%20climate%20change&hsa_mt=b&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21703171123&gbraid=0AAAAADlRPw2FJs_GVRg0fDN_2ey0VEbnI&gclid=CjwKCAjw2brFBhBOEiwAVJX5GHE_IjvRla7pI2msasTfYOf7K9JexC4TLRiGSr5w3QPxe4o-F39b7BoC7UwQAvD_BwE

https://climatekids.nasa.gov/greenhouse-cards/

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0066

https://www.independent.com/2018/05/10/john-perlin-rediscovers-feminist-crusader-who-discovered-climate-change/

Do you know who discovered climate change?

Most people would say John Tyndall, but that wouldn’t exactly be true. The actual first discoverer was a woman. But what's crazy is that she was almost completely erased from history. This is the story of Eunice Foote.

Sources:

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/features/happy-200th-birthday-eunice-foote-hidden-climate-science-pioneer

https://www.aps.org/apsnews/2023/07/carbon-dioxide-atmosphere-eunice-foote

https://www.momscleanairforce.org/eunice-newton-foote/

https://www.schools.nyc.gov/learning/subjects/social-studies/hidden-voices/contentdetails/hidden-voices/2025/04/22/eunice-foote-the-nearly-forgotten-mother-of-climate-science

https://vitalsigns.edf.org/story/female-climate-scientist-youve-never-heard-should-have

https://climatepromise.undp.org/news-and-stories/worlds-largest-survey-climate-change-out-heres-what-results-show

https://www.natureandculture.org/climate-change-and-extreme-weather/?utm_term=what%20is%20climate%20change&utm_campaign=BTD+%7C+Power+Page+%7C+Climate+Change&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=2265980610&hsa_cam=21703171123&hsa_grp=169004252044&hsa_ad=713379801246&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=kwd-289419804&hsa_kw=what%20is%20climate%20change&hsa_mt=b&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21703171123&gbraid=0AAAAADlRPw2FJs_GVRg0fDN_2ey0VEbnI&gclid=CjwKCAjw2brFBhBOEiwAVJX5GHE_IjvRla7pI2msasTfYOf7K9JexC4TLRiGSr5w3QPxe4o-F39b7BoC7UwQAvD_BwE

https://climatekids.nasa.gov/greenhouse-cards/

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0066

https://www.independent.com/2018/05/10/john-perlin-rediscovers-feminist-crusader-who-discovered-climate-change/

Hypatia, an ancient Roman philosopher, was literally the smartest woman of her time, and people knew it. She was, in fact, so smart that she literally became a threat to Christianity… This is the story of Hypatia, the first female mathematician