---
title: "Women in science"
chunk: 12/25
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_science"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:51:28.816114+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

==== Australia after World War II ====
Amanda Barnard, an Australia-based theoretical physicist specializing in nanomaterials, winner of the Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year.
Isobel Bennett, was one of the first women to go to Macquarie Island with the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE). She is one of Australia's best known marine biologists.
Dorothy Hill, an Australian geologist who became the first female professor at an Australian university.
Ruby Payne-Scott, was an Australian who was an early leader in the fields of radio astronomy and radiophysics. She was one of the first radio astronomers and the first woman in the field.
Penny Sackett, an astronomer who became the first female chief scientist of Australia in 2008. She is a US-born Australian citizen.
Fiona Stanley, winner of the 2003 Australian of the Year award, is an epidemiologist noted for her research into child and maternal health, birth disorders, and her work in the public health field.
Michelle Simmons, winner of the 2018 Australian of the Year award, is a quantum physicist known for her research and leadership on atomic-scale silicon quantum devices.

==== Israel after World War II ====
Ada Yonath, the first woman from the Middle East to win a Nobel prize in the sciences, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009 for her studies on the structure and function of the ribosome.
Latin America
Maria Nieves Garcia-Casal, the first scientist and nutritionist woman from Latin America to lead the Latin America Society of Nutrition.
Angela Restrepo Moreno is a microbiologist from Colombia. She first gained interest in tiny organisms when she had the opportunity to view them through a microscope that belonged to her grandfather. While Restrepo has a variety of research, her main area of research is fungi and their causes of diseases. Her work led her to develop research on a disease caused by fungi that has only been diagnosed in Latin America but was originally found in Brazil: Paracoccidioidomycosis. Research groups also developed by Restrepo have begun studying two routes: the relationship between humans, fungi, and the environment and also how the cells within the fungi work.
Along with her research, Restrepo co-founded a non-profit that is devoted to scientific research named Corporation for Biological Research (CIB). Angela Restrepo Moreno was awarded the SCOPUS Prize in 2007 for her numerous publications. She currently resides in Colombia and continues her research.
Susana López Charretón was born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1957. She is a virologist whose area of study focused on the rotavirus. When she initially began studying rotavirus, it had only been discovered four years earlier. Charretón's main job was to study how the virus entered cells and its ways of multiplying. Because of her, and several others, work other scientists were able to learn about more details of the virus. Now, her research focuses on the virus's ability to recognize the cells it infects. Along with her husband, Charretón was awarded the Carlos J. Finlay Prize for Microbiology in 2001. She also received the Loreal-UNESCO prize titled "Woman in Science" in 2012. Charretón has also received several other awards for her research.
Liliana Quintanar Vera is a Mexican chemist. Currently a researcher at the Department of Chemistry of the Center of Investigation and Advanced Studies, Vera's research currently focuses on neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and prion disease and also on degenerative diseases like diabetes and cataracts. For this research she focused on how copper interacts with the proteins of the neurodegenerative diseases mentioned before.
Liliana's awards include the Mexican Academy of Sciences Research Prize for Science in 2017, the Marcos Moshinsky Chair award in 2016, the Fulbright Scholarship in 2014, and the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award in 2007.

== Nobel laureates ==

The Nobel Prize and Prize in Economic Sciences have been awarded to women 61 times between 1901 and 2022. One woman, Marie Sklodowska-Curie, has been honored twice, with the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics and the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This means that 60 women in total have been awarded the Nobel Prize between 1901 and 2022. 25 women have been awarded the Nobel Prize in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine.

=== Chemistry ===
2022 – Carolyn Bertozzi
2020 – Emmanuelle Charpentier, Jennifer Doudna
2018 – Frances Arnold
2009 – Ada E. Yonath
1964 – Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
1935 – Irène Joliot-Curie
1911 – Marie Sklodowska-Curie

=== Physics ===
2023 – Anne L'Huillier
2020 – Andrea Ghez
2018 – Donna Strickland
1963 – Maria Goeppert-Mayer
1903 – Marie Sklodowska-Curie

=== Physiology or Medicine ===
2023 – Katalin Karikó
2015 – Youyou Tu
2014 – May-Britt Moser
2009 – Elizabeth H. Blackburn
2009 – Carol W. Greider
2008 – Françoise Barré-Sinoussi
2004 – Linda B. Buck
1995 – Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard
1988 – Gertrude B. Elion
1986 – Rita Levi-Montalcini
1983 – Barbara McClintock
1977 – Rosalyn Yalow
1947 – Gerty Cori

== Fields Medal ==
2014 – Maryam Mirzakhani (1977–2017), the first woman to have won the prize, was an Iranian mathematician and a professor of mathematics at Stanford University.
2022 – Maryna Viazovska

== Statistics ==

Statistics are used to indicate disadvantages faced by women in science, and also to track positive changes of employment opportunities and incomes for women in science.