---
title: "Timeline of women in science"
chunk: 13/16
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:04:23.558030+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

1980: Japanese geochemist Katsuko Saruhashi became the first woman elected to the Science Council of Japan.
1980: Nigerian geophysicist Deborah Ajakaiye became the first woman in any West African country to be appointed a full professor of physics. Over the course of her scientific career, she became the first female Fellow elected to the Nigerian Academy of Science, and the first female dean of science in Nigeria.
1981: Vera Rubin was the second female astronomer elected to the National Academy of Science. Beginning her academic career as the sole undergraduate in astronomy at Vassar College, Rubin went on to graduate studies at Cornell University and Georgetown University, where she observed deviations from Hubble flow in galaxies and provided evidence for the existence of galactic superclusters.
1982: Nephrologist Leah Lowenstein became the first female dean of a co-educational medical school in the United States.
1982: Janet Vida Watson FRS FGS (1923–1985) was a British geologist. She was a professor of geology at Imperial College, London. A fellow of the Royal Society, she is well known for her contribution to the understanding of the Lewisian complex and as an author and co-author of several books. In 1982 she was elected president of the Geological Society of London, the first woman to occupy that position.
1983: American cytogeneticist Barbara McClintock received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery of genetic transposition; she was the first woman to receive that prize without sharing it, and the first American woman to receive any unshared Nobel Prize.
1983: Brazilian agronomist Johanna Döbereiner became a founding Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences.
1983: Indian immunologist Indira Nath became the first female scientist to receive the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Award in the Medical Sciences category.
1983: Geologist Sudipta Sengupta and marine biologist Aditi Pant became the first Indian women to visit the Antarctic.
1985: After identifying HIV as the cause of AIDS, Chinese-American virologist Flossie Wong-Staal became the first scientist to clone and genetically map the HIV virus, enabling the development of the first HIV blood screening tests.
1986: Italian neurologist Rita Levi-Montalcini received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Stanley Cohen, "for their discoveries of growth factors".
1988: American biochemist and pharmacologist Gertrude B. Elion received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with James W. Black and George H. Hitchings "for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment".
1988: American scientist and inventor Patricia Bath (born 1942) became the first African-American to patent a medical device, namely the Laserphaco Probe for improving the use of lasers to remove cataracts.

=== 1990s ===

1991: Doris Malkin Curtis became the first female president of the Geological Society of America.
1991: Indian geologist Sudipta Sengupta became the first female scientist to receive the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Award in the Earth Sciences category.
Helen Patricia Sharman, CMG, OBE, HonFRSC (born 30 May 1963) is a chemist who became the first British astronaut (and in particular, the first British cosmonaut) as well as the first woman to visit the Mir space station in May 1991.
1992: Mae Carol Jemison is an American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut. She became the first black woman to travel into space when she served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Jemison joined NASA's astronaut corps in 1987 and was selected to serve for the STS-47 mission, during which she orbited the Earth for nearly eight days on September 12–20, 1992.
1992: Edith M. Flanigen became the first woman awarded the Perkin Medal (widely considered the highest honor in American industrial chemistry) for her outstanding achievements in applied chemistry. The medal especially recognized her syntheses of aluminophosphate and silicoaluminophosphate molecular sieves as new classes of materials.
1995: German biologist Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Edward B. Lewis and Eric F. Wieschaus, "for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development".
1995: British geomorphologist Marjorie Sweeting published the first comprehensive Western account of China's karst, entitled Karst in China: its Geomorphology and Environment.
1995: Israeli-Canadian mathematical biologist Leah Keshet became the first female president of the international Society for Mathematical Biology.
1995: Jane Plant became the first female deputy director of the British Geological Survey.
1995: Inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission discovered that Iraqi microbiologist Rihab Taha, nicknamed "Dr. Germ", had been overseeing a secret 10-year biological warfare development program in Iraq.
1996: American planetary scientist Margaret G. Kivelson led a team that discovered the first subsurface, saltwater ocean on an alien world, on the Jovian moon Europa.
1997: Lithuanian-Canadian primatologist Birutė Galdikas received the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement for her research and rehabilitation work with orangutans. Her work with orangutans, eventually spanning over 30 years, was later recognized in 2014 as one of the longest continuous scientific studies of wild animals in history.
1997: Chilean astronomer María Teresa Ruiz discovered Kelu 1, one of the first observed brown dwarfs. In recognition of her discovery, she became the first woman to receive the Chilean National Prize for Exact Sciences.
1998: Nurse Fannie Gaston-Johansson became the first African-American woman tenured full professor at Johns Hopkins University.
Late 1990s: Ethiopian-American chemist Sossina M. Haile developed the first solid acid fuel cell.

== 21st century ==