The 2024 list: Catholic Women Pioneering in Science

I am preparing a talk for the 2024 Conference of the Society of Catholic Scientists, my contribution is titled: “With the Future in Mind: Catholic Women Pioneers in Science”.

The women presented here come from a variety of scientific disciplines and lead lives as diverse as life itself can be, but they all had two characteristics in common: (1) they have had an impact on the science and/or scientific education at their time and (2) their lives were informed, transformed, and inspired by their Catholic faith.

Twenty-four of these women were presented in the 2023 post, and 12 new short biographies have been added.

1. Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)
2. Herrad of Landsberg (1130–1195)
3. Laura Bassi (October 1711 – 20 February 1778)
4. Maria Gaetana Agnesi (16 May 1718 – 09 January 1799)
5. Marie-Anne Lavoisier (20 January 1758 – 10 February 1836)
6. Maria Dalle Donne (12 July 1778 – 9 June 1842)
7. Agnes McLaren (4 July 1837 – 17 April 1913)
8. Agnes Mary Clerke (10 February 1842 – 20 January 1907)
9. Therese von Bayern (12 November 1850 – 19 September 1926)
10. Marcella O’Grady Boveri (7 October 1863 – 24 October 1950)
11. Emily Fortey (1866 – 10 September 1946)
12. Eva von Bahr-Bergius (16 September 1874 – 28 February 1962)
13. Euphemia Lofton Haynes (11 September 1890 – 25 June 1980) 
14. Dorothy Annie Elizabeth Garrod (5 May 1892 – 18 December 1968)
15. Sr. Hilary Ross (1894 – 30 November 1982)
16. Anna Reinach (21  June 1884 – 29 December 1953)
17. Sr. Mary Glowrey (23 June 1887 – 05 May 1957)
18. Anna Maria Dengel (16 March 1892 – 17 April 1980)
19. Hermine Speier (28 May 1898 – 11 January 1989)
20. Regina Flannery Herzfeld (December 1904 – November 26, 2004)
21. Anneliese Maier (17 November 1905 – 2 December 1971)
22. Sr Mary Celine Fasenmyer (4 October 1906 – 27 December 1996)
23. Máirín de Valera (12 April 1912 – 8 August 1984)
24. Piedad de la Cierva (1 June 1913 – 31 December 2007)
25. Sr. Mary Kenneth Keller (17 December 1913 – 10 January 1985)
26. Guadalupe Ortiz de Landazuri (12 September 1915 – 16 July 1975)
27. Sr. Miriam Michael Stimson (24 December 1913 – 17 June 2002)
28. Anne-Marie Staub (13 November 1914 – 30 December 2012)
29. Sr. Monica Asman (14 September 1920 – 05 April 2016)
30. Kathleen “Kay” McNulty Mauchly Antonelli (12 February 1921 – 20 April 2006)
31. Frances V. Bilas Spence (02 March 1922 – 18 July 2012)
32. Stephanie L. Kwolek (31 July 1923 to 18 June 2014)
33. Mary Brück (29 May 1925 – 11 December 2008)
34. Gabriella Morreale de Escobar (07 April 1930 – 4 December 2017)
35. Wangari Maathai (1 April 1940 – 25 September 2011)
36. Angelita Castro-Kelly (26 August 1942 – 07 June 2015)

Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)

Hildegard of Bingen was a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary, and polymath. She is considered to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.

Herrad of Landsberg (1130–1195)

Herrad of Landsberg was an abbess of Hohenburg in Alsace and compiled the scientific compendium Hortus deliciarum. She wrote this work for the nuns of her convent and it was designed to embody in words and in pictures the knowledge of her age.

Laura Bassi (October 1711 – 20 February 1778)

Laura Maria Caterina Bassi was an Italian physicist. She was the first woman in the world to earn a university chair in a scientific field of studies. She received a doctoral degree from the University of Bologna in May 1732, only the third academic qualification ever bestowed on a woman by a European university, and the first woman to earn a professorship in physics at a university in Europe. She was the only woman among the “Beneddettini”, a circle of 25 scholars appointed by Pope Benedict XIV.

Maria Gaetana Agnesi (16 May 1718 – 09 January 1799)

Maria Gaetana Agnesi was an Italian woman of remarkable intellectual gifts and attainments. Her father was professor of mathematics at Bologna. She remains known for the so-called “witch of Agnesi”, a cubic plane curve defined from two diametrically opposite points of a circle. Maria gained such a reputation as a mathematician that she was appointed by Benedict XIV to teach mathematics in the University of Bologna, during her father’s illness. Following her father’s death, she devoted herself to the study of theology and the Fathers of the Church.

Marie-Anne Lavoisier (20 January 1758 – 10 February 1836)

Marie-Anne Lavoisier was the wife of the chemist and nobleman Antoine Lavoisier and acted as his laboratory companion and contributed to his work. Antoine Lavoisier was sentenced to death and executed during the turbulences of the French Revolution. He returned to his faith in God during his time in prison. She herself was a faithful Catholic and was theologically well-versed. She was instrumental in the 1789 publication of her husband’s Elementary Treatise on Chemistry, which presented an overview of chemistry as a field. She contributed thirteen drawings that showed all the laboratory instrumentation and equipment used by the Lavoisiers in their experiments. She also kept strict records of the procedures followed, lending validity to the findings Lavoisier published.

Maria Dalle Donne (12 July 1778 – 9 June 1842)

Maria Dalle Donne was an Italian physician and a director at the University of Bologna. She was the first female doctorate in medicine, and the second woman to become a member of the Ordine dei Benedettini Accademici Pensionati.

Agnes McLaren (4 July 1837 – 17 April 1913)

Agnes McLaren was a Scottish physician who inspired other women to dedicate their medical knowledge to the care of the poor. Not allowed to study medicine in Scotland, she went to France and was the first female to graduate as medical doctor from the University of Montpellier. By 1882, she was also Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and had a practice in Cannes. She spent summers in Edinburgh and returned to France in winter. She converted to the Roman Catholic Church in 1898 at the age of 61. She learned about the tremendous health needs of women in India and Pakistan: due to the custom to seclusion, women could not be seen by men other than their immediate family, which means they also could not receive medical care from male physicians. She founded St. Catherine’s Hospital in Rawalpindi (now Pakistan). The Austrian physician Anna Dengel – who later founded the Medical Mission Sisters,  and the Australian Physician Mary Glowrey – who spent many years in Guntur, India, and became the world’s first nun-doctor missionary – followed her leadership.

Agnes Mary Clerke (10 February 1842 – 20 January 1907)

Agnes Mary Clerke was an Irish astronomer and science educator. At the age of 15, she began to write her own history of astronomy. She and her sister spent ten years in Italy, mainly living in Florence where they studied science, acquired literary skills and became excellent linguists. In 1877 the sisters went to London where the family was reunited. She wrote famous biographies of Galileo, Huygens, Kepler, Lagrange, Laplace, and other scientists for the ninth edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica. She also wrote the Astronomy article for the Catholic Encyclopedia. She is perhaps best known for her book “A Popular History of Astronomy during the Nineteenth Century” (1885), a book cherished by astronomers and laypeople alike. As a member of the British Astronomical Association she attended its meetings regularly, as well as those of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1903, she was elected an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Therese von Bayern (12 November 1850 – 19 September 1926)

Therese von Bayern was a Bavarian princess, ethnologist, zoologist, botanist, travel writer, and advocate for the education of women. She led 2 scientific expeditions to South America with a truly adventurous spirit, describing them in carefully researched publications and books. She was elected by the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in 1892 as its first honorary female member and five years later became the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Munich. Her diary reveals her close relationship with God and her deep piety. Her faith was also caritative as exemplified in her care for wounded soldiers in her villa in Lindau am Bodensee during WWI. Another characteristic was her loyalty to the people she loved. In 1864, her mother on her deathbed asked her to care for her father and her brothers, a wish she fulfilled diligently. In 1886, her father became the Prince Regent, the de facto ruler of Bavaria. She stood by his side until his death in 1912. As a young girl, she fell in love with her cousin Otto, a love forever unfulfilled, given his poor health and psychiatric disease. Yet, she remained loyal to her love and refused to marry despite the wishes of her family.

Marcella O’Grady Boveri (7 October 1863 – 24 October 1950)

Marcella O’Grady Boveri was the first woman to graduate in biology from MIT (1885). From 1889 to 1896 she headed the Department of Biology at Vassar College for Women in Poughkeepsie, New York. She then went to Würzburg to spend a sabbatical with Theodor Boveri. One year later she married Boveri at the Convent of the Good Shepherd in Troy, and during the next 18 years until Boveri’s death in 1915, she was her husband’s close scientific collaborator. She worked with skills and passion, but without formal recognition, on her husband’s work to understand heredity and development as going beyond the localization of the Mendelian hereditary factors onto the chromosomes. In 1926, she returned to the States and taught biology at the Albertus Magnus College. She was a stimulating and influential teacher, a mentor, and a role model.

Emily Fortey (1866 – 10 September 1946)

Emily Fortey was a British chemist and politician. At the age of 16, she approached John Henry Newman about converting to Catholicism. He advised her to seek advice from a local priest and overcome her father’s resistance. She joined the Catholic Church in 1884. In 1892, she obtained a B.Sc at University College, Bristol, and obtained an Honours Degree in 1895. She received a research grant and worked first in Manchester, then in Bristol. Between 1998 and 1904, she authored and co-authored 14 publications. In 1898, she demonstrated that the cyclohexane fractions of crude oil from three geographical areas (American, Galician, and Caucasian) were not only the same but also matching in synthetic cyclohexane. In 1904, she was one of the signatories of the petition for admission of women into the Chemical Society. She left research in 1904 and moved to Leicester in 1909. During WWI she moved to France and ran a small rescue home for girls in Le Havre; where she began to wear distinctive dress and nun-like headwear for the rest of her life. She was the first woman who was elected as Labour Councillor in Leicester. She opposed eugenic measures, slum-clearing policies, and birth control clinics. She tried to push a resolution that women teachers did not have to resign upon marriage. She also tried to secure the appointment of women police officers in Leicester.

Eva von Bahr-Bergius (16 September 1874 – 28 February 1962)

Eva von Bahr-Bergius (1874 – 1962) was a Swedish physicist and teacher. In 1908 she obtained her doctorate with a dissertation on the effects of pressure on the gaseous absorption of infrared rays. That same year she was appointed ‘docent’ (lecturer) in physics, making her the first woman to hold this post in Sweden. Although her dissertation gained international acclaim, it did not enable her to continue her research at Uppsala. Between 1912 and 1914, she was a researcher in Berlin at the Institute of Experimental Physics. During this brief period of time, she discovered that the absorption spectrum of steam is not continuous, which supported Max Planck’s quantum theory. She was the only Swedish researcher mentioned by Niels Bohr in his 1922 Nobel Prize lecture on the structure of atoms.  In Berlin, she became a close friend of Lise Meitner, and helped her to obtain a travel permit for Sweden in July 1938, after Meitner lost her Austrian citizenship following the annexation of Austria by Germany. A few days before, Lise Meitner had been able to flee from Berlin to The Netherlands. It was during the Christmas holiday in 1938 in von Bahr’s home that Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch developed the concept of ‘nuclear fission’, published in February 1939.  Eva von Bahr spent the summer of 1914 in Uppsala and could not return to Berlin due to the start of WWI. She decided to become a teacher in an adult education college in Dalarna, close to the border with Norway. She married Niklas Bergius, a charismatic teacher and Catholic. Eva von Bahr-Bergius was an atheist from her youth until 1918 when the couple had a visit to a local Catholic church in Demark. This experience led to her full conversion to the Catholic faith in 1933, the same year she published a book entitled ‘My journey back to Christianity’. During the Second World War, she was actively involved in aid work for Finland and Norway. Her husband died in 1947 and she moved to Uppsala, where she died in 1962.

Euphemia Lofton Haynes (11 September 1890 – 25 June 1980) 

Euphemia Lofton Haynes was the first Afro-American to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1943. Thanks to her parents, she had opportunities that most African Americans in DC could not have at this time. However, her family situation turned to turmoil early in her life since her parents separated and later divorced. In 1917, she married Harold Appo Haynes, whom she had known since their teenage years. They moved to Chicago to pursue higher education. She gained a master’s degree in education from the University of Chicago in 1930, and finally completed her Ph.D. from the Catholic University of America. She was a life-long educator and advocator for the poor and opposed racial segregation. In 1959, she was honored by Pope John XXIII with the Papal Medal for her life of service.

Dorothy Annie Elizabeth Garrod (5 May 1892 – 18 December 1968)

Dorothy Annie Elizabeth Garrod was a British archaeologist who specialized in the Palaeolithic period. She held the position of Disney Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge from 1938 to 1952, and was the first woman to hold an Oxbridge chair. Her meeting with Father Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, in Paris helped her to return with new vigor and commitment to her Catholic faith.

Sr. Hilary Ross (1894 – 30 November 1982)

Sr. Hilary Ross was a member of the Daughters of Charity. From 1923 until her retirement in 1960, she worked at the Hospital at Carville, Louisiana, a hospital where leprosy (Hansen’s disease, HD) was treated, She started as a pharmacist and was appointed as biochemist in 1928. When she first arrived at Carville, there was no laboratory and she established the first one during her time there, serving as lab technician, photographer, microbiologist, and supervisor. One of her first studies investigated the relationship between calcium and phosphorus metabolism and bone changes in HD patients.  She helped to implement the treatment with sulfones, by studying its bacteriostatic properties and establishing dosing regimes of sulfones in order to guarantee efficacy and limit side effects. She also proposed that armadillos may partly be the culprit for transmitting the Hansen bacteria to humans. In 1960, she asked to go to Japan to take care of handicapped children and remained there until she died in 1982.

Anna Reinach (21  June 1884 – 29 December 1953)

Anna Reinach  (née Stettenheimer) was one of the first three female students at the University of Tübingen, Germany. She received her PhD in physics in 1907 for her work on the Zeeman-Effect, and became a high-school teacher. In 1912, she married the philosopher Adolf Reinach, and in 1916, both were baptized as Lutheran Christians. Her husband died in 1917 in World War I. Edith Stein was friend of both and asked herself how could she comfort the young woman? But Edith Stein didn’t need to give an answer here, because Anna Reinach drew the strength from her Christian faith gave her the strength to accept her husband’s death calmly. Edith Stein wrote about this encounter with Reinach’s widow:

“This was my first encounter with the cross and the divine power that it communicates to its bearers. I saw for the first time the Church, born of the suffering of the Redeemer, in its victory over the sting of death. It was the moment in which my unbelief collapsed, Judaism faded away and Christ shone forth: Christ in the mystery of the cross.”

Edith Stein and Anna Reinach became very close friends, and it was Stein who helped put Adolf’s philosophical writings in order after his death. Anna converted to Catholicism in 1923. She entered the Benedictine Order in 1937. Catholic friends could protect her from persecution due to her Jewish ancestry until 1942 when she needed to flee to Paris and from there to Spain. In 1950, she returned to Munich. In 1953, shortly before her death, a new edition of her husband’s main work was published under the title “Zur Phänomenologie des Rechts, die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechts.”

Sr. Mary Glowrey (23 June 1887 – 05 May 1957)

Dr Sr Mary Glowrey JMJ (1887-1957) was a Australian medical doctor. Mary regarded medicine as her first vocation, having prayed for guidance as to what to study. In 1910, Mary graduated with a degree in medicine and surgery. In the following decade, she became a successful doctor and eye specialist in Melbourne. In 1915, she read a biography on Dr Agnes McLaren (1837-1913), a Scottish pioneering physician and Catholic convert. She went to Guntur, India, in 1920 and became a religious sister. In the same year, she obtained permission from Pope Benedict XV that same year to practice medicine as a religious sister, a privilege granted to her 16 years ahead of the allowance set forth in Canon Law for other women religious. Over her 37 years of devoted service, Sister Mary administered care to hundreds of thousands of patients. Her visionary leadership extended to healthcare education, laying the foundation for a Catholic medical college in India. She died in Bangalore from cancer in 1957 at 69 years of age. The cause for the canonization of Mary Glowrey was initiated in 2010, and in recognition of her exemplary life, the Catholic Church bestowed upon her the title of Servant of God in 2013.

Anna Maria Dengel (16 March 1892 – 17 April 1980)

Anna Maria Dengel was an Austrian physician, Religious Sister and missionary. She decided early in her life to become a missionary. She studied languages and taught German in Lyons, France, for two years. She learned of Dr. Agnes McLaren who instilled in her the determination to serve in India. McLaren was already in her mid-70s at this time, however, and died before she and Dengel could meet. Nonetheless, she continued on the path set forth together. She applied for admission to study medicine at the University College, Cork, Ireland, and continued in Queen’s College Medical School, receiving her medical degree in 1919. She worked as a medical assistant at a clinic in England until the visa for India came. Dengel left for Rawalpindi (now Pakistan) in October 1920 to work at St. Catherine’s Hospital for women who due to the custom to seclusion, could not be seen by men other than their immediate family, which meant they also could not receive medical care from male physicians. She became convinced that many more professionally trained and spiritually dedicated women were needed in order to effect real healing among the people, and thus started to travel to raise funds and find like-minded women. She had a vision that a group of women health professionals who dedicated their lives to God could make a difference in helping women have access to the health care they deserved.  She saw this not only as a work of charity, but also one of justice. In 1925, she founded the Society of Catholic Medical Missionaries. She also worked towards the approval for religious sisters to work in medical professions which finally came in 1936. Their new congregation was named Sisters of Catholic Medical Missionaries, and Dengel became the first Superior General. She died on 17 April 1980 in Rome and is buried in the Teutonic Cemetery (reserved for natives of Germanic nations serving the Catholic institutions of Rome), which is within the territory of Vatican City.

Hermine Speier (28 May 1898 – 11 January 1989)

Hermine Speier was a German archaeologist. She graduated with a doctorate in archaeology and a double minor in ancient history and classical philology in 1925 from the University of Heidelberg. After graduating she began working in Königsberg until 1928, when her mentor Ludwig Curtius recruited her to help with the photographic archive at the German Archaeological Institute (German: Deutsches Archäologisches Institut) (DAI) in Rome. She was Jewish, and lost her position in 1934, one year after the Nazi regime seized power and dismissed Jewish people in public positions. She was offered to build a photographic archive at the Vatican by the Director-General of the Vatican Museums and became one of the first women employed by the Vatican. She was a pioneering contributor to the collections of archaeological photographs and is often credited as being the first archaeological photo-archivist. Her task was enormous. She organized 20,000 photo negatives from the old collection and also had to classify the new images that were constantly arriving. Almost all the images in publications up to 1966 came from the photo library managed by Speier. In May 1939, she converted to the Catholic faith, as her free decision, not under pressure by the Vatican or anyone else. Her family reacted with severe incomprehension in her family. She survived the Nazi occupation of Rome in a convent for women.  During WW2, many artworks from war-torn areas were shipped to the Vatican for storage. She therefore continued to create a detailed monuments inventory of the Vatican holdings, which resulted in several important finds. As a result of her immense knowledge of ancient monuments, from the mid-1950s until the early 1970s, she was entrusted by the German Archaeological Institute with the publication of the fourth edition of Wolfgang Helbig’s Guide to the public collections of classical antiquities in Rome which had not been updated in half a century. In 1973, she was awarded the Cross of Merit of Germany; she also received the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice medal from the Vatican. She died on 12 January 1989 in Montreux, Switzerland, and was buried in the Campo Santo Teutonico in Rome.

Regina Flannery Herzfeld (December 1904 – November 26, 2004)

Regina Flannery Herzfeld (1904 – 2004) was an American anthropologist. She was a professor of anthropology at the Catholic University of America (CUA) from 1935 to 1971, and editor of Anthropological Quarterly from 1949 to 1963. Flannery married the Austrian-American physicist Karl Herzfeld in 1938. Upon her marriage, she was forced to accept an appointment as a Research Associate at no pay, a decision that was only reversed in 1944. She was a professor of anthropology at the CUA from 1953 to 1971, and editor of Anthropological Quarterly from 1949 to 1963. She completed her doctoral studies at the CUA in 1938. and was the first laywoman to join the faculty of CUA. She was chair of the anthropology department from 1953 to 1969, the first woman to be a department head at CUA. Her research focused on various Indian cultures, with particular emphasis on exploring marriage customs and societal structures affecting the lives of women and children. She was editor of Anthropological Quarterly from 1949 to 1963.[1] She was president of the Anthropology Society of Washington and secretary of the American Anthropological Association.

Anneliese Maier (17 November 1905 – 2 December 1971)

Anneliese Maier was born on 17 November 1905 in Tübingen, where her father, Heinrich Maier, was a professor of philosophy at the university. She studied philosophy, physics, and history at the universities of Zürich and Berlin. In her PhD thesis, she examined Kant’s categories of quality from both a historical and a philosophical perspective. Completed in 1930, it was published in the same year as a supplement to Kant-Studien. She played a pivotal role in the publication of her father’s book series, “Philosophie der Wirklichkeit” (1926 – 1935, 3 volumes) (Philosophy of Reality). At the Prussian Academy of Sciences, she contributed to the Leibniz-Edition. In 1936, she moved to Rome. There, with a scholarship from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), she explored Scholastic natural philosophy at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Kulturwissenschaften, now Bibliotheca Hertziana. Her conversion to Catholicism occurred in 1943. From 1945, she worked as a researcher at the Bibliotheca Vaticana. She turned her attention to the history of science from scholastic philosophy to the 17th century. In 1951 Maier became a professor at the University of Cologne, but soon returned to Rome and died in Rome of influenza in 1971.

As a historian of medieval science, Anneliese Maier was both a successor to Pierre Duhem (1861 – 1916) and one of his most notable critics. While acknowledging Duhem’s proposition that the fourteenth-century conception of nature was an early and preparatory stage for classical physics, Maier challenged his tendency to interpret Scholastic doctrines through a modern lens and to impose anachronistic interpretations upon them. Like Duhem, Maier focused much of her early research on the study of Galileo Galilei and his forerunners (= vol. 1 of her Studien zur Naturphilosophie der Spätscholastik) seeking to reconstruct the background of Galileo’s ideas.

Sr Mary Celine Fasenmyer (4 October 1906 – 27 December 1996)

Sister Mary Celine Fasenmyer, R.S.M. was a mathematician, most noted for her work on hypergeometric functions and linear algebra. After getting her Ph.D., Sister Celine published two papers which expanded on her doctorate work. The hypergeometric polynomials she studied are called Sister Celine’s polynomials.

Máirín de Valera (12 April 1912 – 8 August 1984)

Máirín de Valera (12 April 1912 – 8 August 1984) was a leading expert in phycology – the study of algae – and the first Professor of Botany in Galway, Ireland. She had a winning personality, known for her rigorous botanical courses, and her deep knowledge of seaweeds on the Irish west coast, which she explored mostly on foot or by bicycle.  She was deeply Catholic, trying to go to daily Mass whenever possible.

Piedad de la Cierva (1 June 1913 – 31 December 2007)

Piedad de la Cierva was a pioneer as one of the first female chemists in Spain. She was an “invisible” pioneer, not well known in Spain, and not known at all in the non-Spanish speaking world. She had to change the area of her investigations twice due to external reasons but each time she became a pioneer in her new field. She worked on radioactive particles and atoms, later in the field of optics developing glass for instruments for the Spanish Navy, and ultimately in isolating brick material using rice hulls. In Spain in the 1940ies, she was ahead of her time and therefore could not fulfill her aspirations in academia. Nonetheless, she led decades of fruitful industrial research. As a Catholic, she was also a pioneer: in 1952, she joined Opus Dei as one of the first Associate members.

Sr. Mary Kenneth Keller (17 December 1913 – 10 January 1985)

Sr. Mary Kenneth Keller was an American Roman Catholic religious sister, educator and pioneer in computer science. She was the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in computer science in the United States. Her thesis was titled “Inductive Inference on Computer Generated Patterns”. Keller was an advocate for the involvement of women in computing and the use of computers for education.

Guadalupe Ortiz de Landazuri (12 September 1915 – 16 July 1975)

Guadalupe Ortiz de Landazuri was a Chemist and one of the first Nummerary members of Opus Dei. In 1933, she started studying Chemistry in Madrid. One Sunday in 1944, while she attended Mass, she felt “touched by the grace of God”. She got to know St. Josemaría Escrivá, founder of Opus Dei, who taught her that Christ can be found in professional work and ordinary life. She joined Opus Dei a few months later, went to Mexico and Rome to help set up apostolic and educational initiatives, and returned to Spain in 1958. She defended her Ph.D. thesis in 1965 and continued to teach Chemistry in different high schools and institutions to advance professional formation in young professionals. Her joy, her strength, and her commitment to everyone around her, her strong love to the Eucharist and to Our Lady characterized her. She suffered from heart disease for many years and died at the age of 58. And she was beatified in Madrid in 2019 and is thus presented to us as a role model for laypeople in general and scientists in particular.

Sr. Miriam Michael Stimson (24 December 1913 – 17 June 2002)

Sr. Miriam Michael Stimson was an American Roman Catholic religious sister and a chemist. She was the second woman to lecture at the Sorbonne and taught at Siena Heights University. She is noted for her work on spectroscopy. She played a role in the history of understanding DNA.

Anne-Marie Staub (13 November 1914 – 30 December 2012)

Anne-Marie Staub was a French biochemist who spent most of her career at the Institut Pasteur. She earned her degrees in general mathematics, chemistry and general physics, physiology, and biochemistry from the Sorbonne University in Paris. She attended microbiology courses at the Institut Pasteur from 1935 to 1936 and then joined the institute to work on her Ph.D. thesis focusing on the development of molecules with antihistamine properties. Although the initial iterations of these molecules proved too toxic for practical use, they laid the foundation for subsequent research in the field. From 1941-1946 she worked with antigens of B. anthracis (the bacteria causing Anthrax) and a vaccine directed against the bacteria. She then continued her research in bacterial antigens, mainly on polysaccharides. She co-directed the immunology course from 1960 to 1974 and became a professor in 1970. She retired in 1987, and became an active member of the Catholic institution “La Vie Montante”, an evangelization movement for persons of advanced age.

Sr. Monica Asman (14 September 1920 – 05 April 2016)

Sr. Monica Asman (1920 – 2016) became a member of the Sisters of St. Francis in 1940, and from 1944 to 1962 she worked as school teacher. In 1966, she received a Ph.D. in mosquito genetics from the University of Notre Dame (USA), which focused on chromosomal translocations of Aedes aegypti She started working as an instructor in the Biology Department at Santa Clara University, where she remained until 1971; in 1968 she also joined the faculty of the University of California Berkeley as an Associate Research Entomologist, where she worked for almost 20 years.  As an expert in mosquito genetics, she did research on Culex tarsalis, a mosquito native in California. Via irradiation with cobalt-60, she and her team induced genetic alterations and determined the ideal radiation dose that induced approximately 95% mosquito sterility. She also participated in field releases of genetically altered and radiosterilized Cx. tarsalis males.

Kathleen “Kay” McNulty Mauchly Antonelli (12 February 1921 – 20 April 2006)

Kathleen “Kay” McNulty Mauchly Antonelli was an Irish-born American computer programmer who was one of the first to work with the early ENIAC machine. The ENIAC computer (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was constructed by John Mauchly (her future husband) and John Eckert in the Moore School of Engineering during years of WW2. It was designed for the specific task of compiling tables for the trajectories of bombs and shells to take over the calculations that McNulty and about 75 other women were carrying out. The machine came into service only in 1946, after the war ended. McNulty was one of six women operating the ENIAC and making substantial contributions to computer science, although it took many years before they received the credit they deserved for their pioneering work. Kay died on 20 April 2006 and her funeral was held at St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church in Ambler, PA.

Frances V. Bilas Spence (02 March 1922 – 18 July 2012)

Frances Bilas was born in Philadelphia in 1922. She attended Temple University but then was awarded a scholarship to Chestnut Hill College where she majored in mathematics with a minor in physics and graduated in 1942. While there, she met Kathleen McNulty, and both later became ENIAC programmers. In 1947, she married Homer Spence, an Army electrical engineer from the Aberdeen Proving Grounds who had been assigned to the ENIAC project and later became head of the Computer Research Branch. Shortly after that, she resigned to raise a family. In 1997 she was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame, along with the other original ENIAC programmers. She died in 2012 and is buried at the Holy Rood Cemetery in Westbury, Nassau County, New York, USA.

Stephanie L. Kwolek (31 July 1923 to 18 June 2014)

Stephanie L. Kwolek was an American chemist known for her invention of Kevlar. Kevlar is a remarkable lightweight, heat-resistant, and incredibly strong material, primarily recognized for its utilization in bulletproof vests. It is a polymer called poly-paraphenylene terephthalamide. To spin the fibers of Kevlar was a difficult task, but the result is exceptional: the fibers of Kevlar possess a tensile strength-to-weight ratio five times higher than that of steel. It is a crucial component in personal armor, including combat helmets, ballistic face masks, and vests. Kevlar is also used in protective clothing, gloves, and sports equipment such as racing canoes, bicycle tires, and tennis racquets. Kwolek was the recipient or co-recipient of 17 United States patents. She was a lifelong practicing Catholic.

Mary Brück (29 May 1925 – 11 December 2008)

Mary Brück (née Conway) was an Irish astronomer and historian of astronomy. Mary Brück gained her PhD in astronomy from the University of Edinburgh, where she went on to become a senior lecturer in astronomy. Her main research interest was in photographic stellar photometry and spectroscopy.

Initially, Mary worked at the Dunsink Observatory, located near Dublin, where she met Hermann Brück, a widower whom she married in 1951. With this union, Mary embraced her new role as a stepmother to Hermann’s children, Peter and Mary, and together they welcomed three more children into their family. In 1957, her husband assumed the position of Astronomer Royal for Scotland, taking charge of the Royal Observatory Edinburgh.

In 1962, Mary made her return to the scientific realm as a part-time astronomy lecturer, later transitioning to a full-time role. During her tenure at Edinburgh, she devoted her research efforts to the Small Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy situated near our own Milky Way. In 1965, she authored a children’s book titled “The Night Sky.”

Upon retiring in 1987, Mary redirected her focus towards astronomical history, embarking on a collaborative journey with her husband. Her interests eventually centered on exploring the lives of women in astronomy, culminating in the publication of two books: “Agnes Clerke and the Rise of Astrophysics” (2002) and “Women in Early British and Irish Astronomy: Stars and Satellites,” which was posthumously released in 2014. It is worth mentioning that Mary Brück ‘s contributions to empowering women in science were substantial. Throughout her life, Mary was a devout Catholic, finding strength in her faith, which harmoniously coexisted with her scientific understanding.

Gabriella Morreale de Escobar (07 April 1930 – 4 December 2017)

Gabriella Morreale de Escobar (1930 –2017) was an Italian-born Spanish chemist and endocrinologist who made unique and very influential contributions to thyroid pathophysiology, together with her husband, Fransisco Escobar del Rey. They found that T4 had to be deiodinated for biological activity, which led to the proposal that T4 is a prohormone and T3 the active hormone. Thyroid hormones cross the placenta during pregnancy and are essential for fetal brain development. In Spain, they initiated the screening program for early detection of congenital hypothyroidism and was instrumental in the introduction of iodized salt. In 1974, they moved to the Faculty of Medicine of the Autonomous University of Madrid where they were co-founders of the Instituto de Investigaciones Biomedicas. She said in 2010: “Following God and family, science is the driving force in my life.”

Wangari Maathai (1 April 1940 – 25 September 2011)

Wangari Muta Maathai (1940 – 2011) was born in Nyeri, Kenya (Africa). She was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree in 1971. She received her primary education from Catholic nuns, and she studied biology at Mount St. Scholastica College, now Benedictine College, in Atchison, Kansas. She continued her studies in Germany and Nairobi. She became chair of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy and an associate professor in 1976 and 1977 respectively. In both cases, she was the first woman to attain those positions in the region. Wangari Maathai was active in the National Council of Women of Kenya in 1976-1987. She developed the idea of planting trees to conserve the environment and improve their quality of life. She is the founder of the Green Belt Movement and thus assisted women in planting more than 20 million trees on their farms and on schools and church compounds. “When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and hope.” She stated that ‘the church has a crucial role to play ’in promoting environmental awareness, but has herself actively worked with church leaders and communities in developing a sense of ‘responsibility to God’s creation’. In 2004, she received the Peace Nobel Prize for her “contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.”

Angelita Castro-Kelly (26 August 1942 – 07 June 2015)

Angelita Castro Kelly (1942-2015) was a space scientist and physicist. She acquired a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Physics at the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines in 1962 and a master’s degree in physics from the University of Maryland. She was married to Francis J. Kelly, a fellow physicist, and had 3 children. She was the first female Mission Operations Manager (MOM) of NASA. She spearheaded and supervised the Earth Observing System missions during its developmental stage. The Earth Observing System comprises of three satellites – Terra, Aqua, and Aura – that carry instruments to measure specific phenomena of the land, water, and atmosphere respectively. As the MOM, Kelly developed overall mission operations concepts, working with spacecraft and ground system developers to ensure the implementation of mission requirements. Before leading the Earth Observing System missions, Kelly helped to develop the Shuttle/Spacelab Data Processing Facility as the project manager of the facility. Her achievements have been recognized by numerous accolades and awards. On her faith, she said: ““Never forget to pray! Take God with you whatever you do and wherever you go. Trust in Him — He’ll guide you to places you haven’t even dreamt about today.”