The book that fights sexism with science
With "Inferior", Angela Saini counters long-held beliefs that biology stands in the way of parity between the sexes.
Now her message is set to reach thousands of schools.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/aug/11/women-equal-to-men-science-fact-book-angela-saini?utm_source=esp
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31869108-inferior?ac=1&from_search=true
by Donna Ferguson, Sat 11 Aug 2018

My Mom, the Missile Computress
What it was like being among the first women in the US missile program
by Karen Piper, August 30, 2018
http://nautil.us/issue/63/horizons/my-mom-the-missile-computress

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Apr 3, 1999 - May 3, 2020

Jocelyn Bell Burnell, the discoverer of pulsars while a student, has been awarded a 3 million dollars Breakthrough Prize, after having been forgotten by the Nobel Committee which assigned the prize to her professor Antony Hewish and astronomer Martin Ryle. She intends to use the money to fund studentships for women scientists.
Tullio

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One more who was "forgotten" by the Nobel Commitee.
Lise Meitner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Meitner
Meitner and Otto Hahn led the small group of scientists who first discovered nuclear fission of uranium when it absorbed an extra neutron.

As a matter of fact, nuclear fission was discovered by Fermi and his group in Rome, but they did not perceive it. Emilio Segre' writes "God, in His wisdom, made us all blind". The one who understood it was Ida Noddack, a German chemist, who was a Nazi follower. But she, being a woman, was not believed.
Tullio

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On "Nature" magazine there is a short biography of Emmy Noether, a mathematician at Gottingen, who proposed in 1918 that for every symmetry in physics there derives a conservation law.Being a Jew, she had to escape to the USA and taught at Bryn Mawr College.
This year is the eighty years anniversary of the infamous racial laws of Mussolini, proclaimed in September 1938, following which many Italian scientist fled, including Bruno Rossi, Giuseppe Occhialini, Rita Levi Montalcini, Emilio Segre' and Enrico Fermi, whose wife was a Jew. Only twelve university professors refused to take an oath to the Fascist regime.
Tullio

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The World needs Science, Science needs women

https://www.forwomeninscience.com/en/home
Yes. L’Oréal Foundation and UNESCO!
Sounds like a joke but it isn't:)
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/priority-areas/gender-and-science/for-women-in-science-programme/
Since 1998, the L’Oréal-UNESCO Awards have recognised more than 102 laureates, exceptional women who have made great advances in scientific research. Three of them have gone on to receive the Nobel Prize.

Of the 923 Nobel Prize winners, only 48 have been women.
The Nobel Prize in Literature is the category most women won, more specifically 16.
Last year, the debate about the lack of female Nobel laureates took proper momentum. the Royal Academy of Sciences promised to do something about it.
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/vetenskap/fler-kvinnor-som-nominerar-till-nobelpris-i-ar

The Nobel Prize's history is lined with women who did not get the prize. From British astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell whose male tutor received the 1978 prize for a discovery she was first to observe, to Lise Meitner whose 30-year collaboration with Otto Hahn was awarded with Hahn alone winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1945.

Donna Strickland: The 'laser jock' Nobel prize winner
By Jessica Murphy, 2 October 2018
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45722890

The physics professor used the description in an interview with a Canadian newspaper, where she discussed efforts to get young people interested in the realm of physics. Dr Strickland has spent much of her life studying and teaching physics, and describes her research as "fun". Now she shares the distinction of being one of three women to ever win the Nobel Prize for physics.

1st woman in 55 years

100 Women: Seven trailblazing women in science
6 November 2017
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41861232

More than half of people in the UK can't name a famous woman in science, a survey suggests. This week, BBC 100 Women aims to change that number. A 2014 YouGov survey of almost 3,000 people, conducted on behalf of UK grassroots group ScienceGrrl, found that only 47% of those asked could name a famous woman scientist.

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Apr 3, 1999 - May 3, 2020

I would add Fabiola Gianotti, a physicist who now leads CERN, deceased Margherita Hack, astronomer born in Florence who spent most of her professional life in Trieste, and why not, Maria Alessandra Papa of the Albert Einstein Institut in Hannover, lead scientist in the search for gravitational waves and also involved in Einstein@home together with her husband, Bruce Allen.
Tullio

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As always, very enlightening information. Thank you. I took the liberty to add links to your message for the interested readers.

On "Nature" magazine there is a short biography of Emmy Noether, a mathematician at Gottingen, who proposed in 1918 that for every symmetry in physics there derives a conservation law.Being a Jew, she had to escape to the USA and taught at Bryn Mawr College.
This year is the eighty years anniversary of the infamous racial laws of Mussolini, proclaimed in September 1938, following which many Italian scientist fled, including Bruno Rossi, Giuseppe Occhialini, Rita Levi Montalcini, Emilio Segre' and Enrico Fermi, whose wife was a Jew. Only twelve university professors refused to take an oath to the Fascist regime.
Tullio

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Apr 3, 1999 - May 3, 2020

A chemistry Nobel prize given to Frances A. Arnold, USA, a woman, together with George P. Smith, USA, and Gregory P. Winter, UK.
Tullio

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A woman chemist today on TV Radio3 science report said that is becoming difficult to distinguishing physics from chemistry and biology and the Nobel committee should tale note of this. I completely agree.
Tullio

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And why is the Nobel prize in chemistry given for things that are not chemistry?
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2015/10/07/why-is-the-nobel-prize-in-chemistry-given-for-things-that-are-not-chemistry

Nature does not distinguish between physics or chemistry or biology. The Greek philosopher Democritus was basically right: when you boil the universe down to its essence there is nothing but atoms and the void. On that interpretation, any attempts to categorise science are bound to be imperfect—or perhaps all science prizes are really physics prizes in disguise. A more positive take on the same argument is that the diversity of the chemistry prizes reflects the fact that chemistry is found everywhere—what is life, after all, but a bunch of self-replicating chemicals?

But then again. The Nobel Foundation, which funds the prize, has Nobel's testamony to consider.
Problems arise already with "prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind."(underscored)
https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/full-text-of-alfred-nobels-will-2/

All of my remaining realisable assets are to be disbursed as follows: the capital, converted to safe securities by my executors, is to constitute a fund, the interest on which is to be distributed annually as prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The interest is to be divided into five equal parts and distributed as follows: one part to the person who made the most important discovery or invention in the field of physics; one part to the person who made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who, in the field of literature, produced the most outstanding work in an idealistic direction; and one part to the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses. The prizes for physics and chemistry are to be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences; that for physiological or medical achievements by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm; and that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be selected by the Norwegian Storting. It is my express wish that when awarding the prizes, no consideration be given to nationality, but that the prize be awarded to the worthiest person, whether or not they are Scandinavian.

The Nobel prize does not consider mathematics, due to an antipathy of its founder to mathematicians. So Emmy Noether did not receive a Nobel prize, but her theorem (1918) is the basis of the Standard Model of elementary particles.
Tullio

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Antipathy to a certain mathematician perhaps.
It is sometimes said that he didn't want a Swedish mathematician, Gösta Mittag-Leffler, to get the prize. However, there is no historical support for this, and more likely, Nobel simply did not think that mathematics was as important to humanity as the five areas in which the prize was founded.
Gösta Mittag-Leffler
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6sta_Mittag-Leffler

Mittag-Leffler was a convinced advocate of women's rights and was instrumental in making Sofia Kovalevskaya a full professor of mathematics in Stockholm—the first woman anywhere in the world to hold that position. As a member of the Nobel Prize Committee in 1903, it was because of his intervention that the committee relented and awarded the prize for Physics to Marie Curie as well as her husband Pierre

CERN suspends physicist who claimed physics was 'invented by men', and that 'somebody had to speak'
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-02/physicist-suspended-by-cern-claims-physics-was-invented-by-men/10327668

Officials at the world's largest particle accelerator have suspended a physicist pending an investigation into his "highly offensive" presentation on gender issues that raised new concerns about sexism in science.

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Apr 3, 1999 - May 3, 2020

NASA Astronauts Complete All-Woman Spacewalk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iji5hTQ3CUo

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Apr 3, 1999 - May 3, 2020

Fabiola Gianotti has been again chosen as Director of CERN for a second period. This is the first case in the history of CERN. Brava Fabiola.
Tullio

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Fabiola Gianotti has been again chosen as Director of CERN for a second period. This is the first case in the history of CERN. Brava Fabiola.
Tullio

I recommend (at least to those who like me haven't heard about her before) her very interesting and informative speech (starting at 7m 33s after a short intro by the MC - but the presentation of the two other winnners in the previous minutes is worthy of interest), last september at an AAAS event, seems indicative (along with her credentials and past accomplishments, at CERN or elsewhere) that she's indeed made of the right stuff, at the right place. The moreso if, like her, you successfully go through a first mandate, and still have the support and respect of the research community to get a 2nd mandate.

Fundamental Research at CERN and International Collaboration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC71GsuAmYc

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Apr 3, 1999 - May 3, 2020