---
title: "Timeline of women in science"
chunk: 8/16
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"
---

1911: Polish-born physicist and chemist Marie Curie became the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which she received "[for] the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element". This made her the first person to win the Nobel Prize twice. As of 2022, she is the only woman to win it twice and the only person to win the Nobel Prize in two scientific fields.
1911: Norwegian biologist Kristine Bonnevie became the first woman member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
1912: American astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt studied the bright-dim cycle periods of Cepheid stars, then found a way to calculate the distance from such stars to Earth.
1912: Canadian botanist and geneticist Carrie Derick was appointed a professor of morphological botany at McGill University. She was the first woman to become a full professor in any department at a Canadian university.
1913: Regina Fleszarowa became the first Polish woman to receive a PhD in natural sciences.
1913: Izabela Textorisová, the first Slovakian female botanist, published "Flora Data from the County of Turiec" in the journal Botanikai Közlemények. Her work uncovered more than 100 previously unknown species of plants from the Turiec area.
1913: Canadian physician and chemist Maud Menten co-authored a paper on enzyme kinetics, leading to the development of the Michaelis–Menten kinetics equation.
1914–1918: During World War I, a team of seven British women chemists conducted pioneering research on chemical antidotes and weaponized gases. The project leader, Martha Annie Whiteley, was awarded the Order of the British Empire for her wartime contributions.
1914-1918: Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan,  (née Fraser) was a prominent English botanist and mycologist. For her wartime service she was the first woman to be awarded a military DBE in January 1918. She served as Commandant of the Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF) from September 1918 until December 1919.
1914: British-born mycologist Ethel Doidge became the first woman in South Africa to receive a doctorate in any subject, receiving her doctorate of science degree from the University of the Good Hope. She wrote her thesis on "A bacterial disease of mango".
1916: Isabella Preston became the first female professional plant hybridist in Canada, producing the George C. Creelman trumpet lily. Her lily later received an Award of Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society.
1916: Chika Kuroda became the first Japanese woman to earn a bachelor of science degree, studying chemistry at the Tohoku Imperial University. After graduation, she was subsequently appointed an assistant professor at the university.
1917: American zoologist Mary J. Rathbun received her PhD from the George Washington University. Despite never having attended college – or any formal schooling beyond high school – Rathbun had authored more than 80 scientific publications, described over 674 new species of crustacean, and developed a system for crustacean-related records at the Smithsonian Museum.
1917: Dutch biologist and phytopathologist Johanna Westerdijk became the first female university professor in the Netherlands. She was appointed an extraordinary professor of phytopathology at the University of Utrecht.
1918: German physicist and mathematician Emmy Noether created Noether's theorem explaining the connection between symmetry and conservation laws.
1919: Dutch biologist and geneticist Jantina Tammes became the university professor in the Netherlands. She was appointed an extraordinary professor of variability and heredity at the University of Groningen. She became the first person in the Netherlands to occupy a chair in genetic. Moreover, she became the second female professor in the country, and the first one at the University of Groningen. She held this position until 1937, when she resigned at the age of sixty-six.
1919: Justicia Espada Acuña graduates from Universidad de Chile, becoming the first woman with degree in civil engineer in South America
1919: Kathleen Maisey Curtis became the first New Zealand woman to earn a Doctorate of Science degree (DSc), completing her thesis on Synchytrium endobioticum (potato wart disease) at the Imperial College of Science and Technology. Her research was cited as "the most outstanding result in mycological research that had been presented for ten years".

=== 1920s ===