"I knew someone had to take

the first step and I made up my mind not to move."

Also know as "the first lady of civil rights", the African-

American Rosa Parks was a pioneer of civil rights in a

racially segregated Alabama in 1950s. In 1955, she refused to give away her seat to a white

passenger in a bus in Montgomery, Alabama,

thereby, disobeying the bus driver's orders. This act of hers sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott that crippled the state

capital's public transport system.

Nominated by Rachel Smith

Rosa Parks (USA) (1913-2005)

Marie Skłodowska-Curie (France/Poland)

1867-1934

• Her achievements included a theory of radioactivity, techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes, and the discovery of two elements, polonium and radium

• She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person (and only woman) to win twice

• She was also the first woman to become a Professor at the University of Paris

• Curie’s achievements are even more

remarkable since they occurred in the field of science, an intellectual activity traditionally forbidden to women

Nominated by Celine Cano

Angelina Jolie (she’s the one on the right…) is an international movie star, famous for her roles in films like Tomb Raider and Maleficent.

She has used her fame to highlight humanitarian causes, particularly through her role as a UN special envoy. In 2012, she launched the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative, leading to the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict in 2014. The summit agreed practical steps to tackle impunity for the use of rape as a weapon of war, and to begin to change global attitudes to these crimes.

She was awarded a Damehood by the Queen in October 2014.

Born 1977 in Iran It will go down in history as the moment one of the last bastions of male dominance fell. Maryam Mirzakhani, a maths professor at Stanford University in California, won the world's most prestigious mathematics prize, often described as the Nobel prize for Maths, in 2014.

Nominated by Arman Esfandiari

Barbara Castle (UK) 1910-2002

One of most significant Labour politicians of 20th Century.

• She introduced the breathalyser and compulsory seat belts

• Equal Pay act 1970 (following strike at Fords, Dagenham, which she helped to resolve)

• Introduced welfare reforms including: Child Benefit – to the purse rather than the wallet Linking social security to income instead of prices Invalidity care allowance Non-contributory invalidity pension Pension reform

• Awarded honour in South Africa for "outstanding contribution to the struggle against apartheid and the establishment of a non-sexist, non-racial and democratic South Africa"

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Gertrude Elion (USA)

The Thiopurine Drugs

Gertrude Belle Elion was an American biochemist and pharmacologist, and a 1988 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Working alone as well as with George H. Hitchings, Elion developed a multitude of new drugs, using innovative research methods that would later lead to the development of the thiopurines, still used in the treatment of leukaemia, and the AIDS drug AZT.

Nominated by Andy Hall

On the start of her career .... "At the age of 12 one is unaware of the problems ahead. One expects there to be an infrastructure for both boys and girls to develop and demonstrate their talents; to nurture them. One does not expect that nothing is available if you are a girl or that worse still, girls will be specifically excluded, not allowed to compete. It is somewhat of a handicap trying to demonstrate just how good you are on a bike when you are not allowed to ride."

Nicole Cooke (UK)

... and at the end! "Women's cycling has declined through each year of my career."

Former professional cyclist Olympic and World road race champion in 2008 A fierce opponent of drug development ... at least, as it has been used in cycling!

Rita Levi-Montalcini (Italy)

• Went to university at 20, defying her father who didn’t believe women should study

• As a Jew in Italy she was forced to leave her RA position in 1938 but made a home laboratory and kept working

• In 1946 she was invited to St Louis for a month and stayed for 30 years • In 1952 she repeated her “home lab” experiments and discovered Nerve

Growth Factor (NGF) • In 1974 she was appointed to the Pope’s Academy of Science , despite being

an atheist • In 1986 she and Stanley Cohen were awarded the Nobel Prize for their

discovery of NGF • In 2002 she founded the European Brain Research Institute • At 97 she turned her mind to politics • She is the only Nobel Prize winner to live to 100

1909-2012

The effect of NGF on a sensory ganglion cell

Janet D Rowley

1925-2013

Cytogeneticist who identified that the Philadelphia

chromosome in chronic myeloid leukaemia was a

translocation between chromosomes 9 and 22 and

many other genetic changes in cancer leading to

the targeted treatments we know today.

She was an inspiration, role model and mentor to

subsequent generations within the scientific arena,

particularly women

‘Take risks and do something different if it looks

interesting…I didn’t do anything noteworthy until I

was 50. Success often involves a great deal of

luck. Some people don’t like to hear that because it

means there are things out of their control. But

that’s the way it is.’

Nominated by Christine Harrison

Dame Ellen Macarthur is probably most famous for breaking the world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe in 2005. She’s also proved that her talents and drive don’t just lie in sailing. In 2003 she set up the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust, a charity that takes young people in recovery from serious illnesses sailing to help them regain their confidence. In 2010 she launched the Ellen MacArthur Foundation which works with global companies, schools and universities to build a ‘circular economy framework’ - a forward thinking model for production and consumerism where resources are kept in use for as long as possible and products are ‘regenerated’ at the end of their life.

Nominated by Nancy Rios

Dame Ellen Macarthur (UK)

Kalpana Chawla, PhD in aerospace engineering from University of Colorado, 1988 Chawla was the first Indian-born woman and the second Indian person to fly in space. She flew on STS-87 (1997) and STS-107 (2003), logging 30 days, 14 hours and 54 minutes in space She died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster which occurred on February 1, 2003 Posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the NASA Space Flight Medal, and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.

Nominated by Deepali Pal

Dame Margot Fonteyn the greatest dancer of her generation; with incomparable grace, imagination and charm. She was a superb professional, on stage and off.

γH2AX γH2AX

Miss Clare Marx

• Miss Marx broke stereotypes throughout her career, becoming an orthopaedic surgeon

• In 2014 she became the first female president of the Royal College of Surgeons, England, to be elected in its 214 year history

• She is a strong influence on initiatives to encourage more women into surgery

Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958)

Nominated by Debbie Hicks

"Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated. Science, for me, gives a partial explanation of life. In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience, and experiment. In my view, all that is necessary for faith is the belief that by doing our best we shall come nearer to success and that success in our aims (the improvement of the lot of mankind, present and future) is worth attaining." --Rosalind Franklin in a letter to Ellis Franklin, ca. summer 1940

Rosalind Elsie Franklin, the brilliant chemist whose x-ray diffraction studies provided crucial clues to the structure of DNA and quantitatively confirmed the Watson-Crick DNA model

•MP for Jarrow

•Lobbied and campaigned tirelessly throughout her life for women’s suffrage, equal pay, and equal rights.

•As Britain’s first female Minister of Education she raised the school leaving age, introduced free milk, and helped found UNESCO.

•Marched with the Jarrow Crusade – a 300 mile walk to London, to protest against unemployment and extreme poverty.

Ellen Wilkinson “Red Ellen”

“Small in stature, but there were occasions when she dwarfed her colleagues by the tenacity with which she stood up for the principles she held to be right".

1891-1947

Nominated by Martin Galler

Irena Sandler • Irena Sandler was a nurse and a scout who

worked in the underground organisations known as AK and Żegota during the II World War.

• With 14 other people she managed to smuggle 2,5k Jewish children (over twice as many as Schindler) out of the Warsaw Ghetto and saved them from slaughter.

• She was eventually caught but managed to evade execution and survived the war. During her capture she was extensively tortured but did not reveal any names of the other members or the routes they used to smuggle children allowing the action to continue

• After the war she dedicated her life to opening and running orphanages and homes for abused mother and children, her continued freedom fighting resulted in further abuse that she suffered from the hands of communist regime (including torture causing her to miscarry) it never stopped her…

Shirin Ebadi was born in 1947. She was one of Iran's first female judges who won the Nobel Peace Prize for her significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights.

Nominated by Maryam Zanjirband

Samantha Cristoforetti - Born 1977 in Milan, Italy – European Space Agency Astronaut

Sam Cristoforetti is currently serving on the International Space Station as part of expedition 42 and is the first Italian woman in space. She is a qualified air force pilot and engineer, but her duties on the ISS involve running a range of experiments including cell culture assays. She is also a keen science communicator, sharing pictures and details of

her work multiple times per day on Twitter, where she has 360,000 followers.

Nominated by Vicky Forster

Shauneen Lambe Shauneen Lambe established London-based Just for Kids Law (JfK) with Aika Stephenson in 2006, having seen the impact of poverty and oppression on the life-chances of disadvantaged young people in the USA when she worked on death penalty cases in the USA. In 2010, JfK were the recipients of the Legal Aid Firm/Not for Profit Award. Shauneen’s compassion, dedication and leadership has been widely acknowledged: she was chosen as a World Economic Forum ‘Young Global Leaders’, awarded a Shackleton Leadership Award in 2011 and elected as an Ashoka Fellow in 2012.

Dame Sheila Sherlock (UK) 1918-2001

Initially struggled to get into medical school as women not accepted Went to Edinburgh Medical school 1936, second women to be awarded Ettles Scholarship, finishing top in her year First women to be Professor of Medicine in UK First women to be vice-president of Royal College Awarded FRS in 1981 Introduced needle biopsy for diagnosis, developed standard test for PBC, demonstrated link between hepatitis B and HCC, demonstrated steroid treatment effective for autoimmune hepatitis, wrote the standard textbook Combined all the above with family life (2 daughters)

Judith Hackitt

Judith Hackitt is Chairperson of the Health and Safety Executive. Although committed to reducing workplace accidents and fatalities she also takes a no-nonsense approach to the over zealous application of health and safety rules, establishing a myth-busting panel to deal with what she described as a ‘national neurosis’. Judith graduated from Imperial College in 1975 and went on to a sucecsful career in chemical engineering, becoming director-general of the Chemical Industry Association from 2002 to 2005. She was made a CBE in 2006 for her work in this field. Judith is married with two grown up daughters.

Dame Sally Davis 1949-

First female Chief Medical Officer Fellow of Royal Society Consultant haematologist Great supporter of early stage career doctors The Champion of Athena Swan Combines all the above with family life (2 daughters)

Doris Bornstein (1922-2014) Feminist, lesbian, polyglot, Eastender, airplane pilot & squatter, atheist eater of ham at communist party meetings before becoming one of the first trotskyists in the UK & and anti-fascist street fighter at the Battle of Cable Street.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (India) • Entrepreneur, Chairman and Managing director of

Biocon Limited, a biotechnology company based in Bangalore, India

• Included in Frobes list of world’s 100 most powerful women and in the business list of top 50 women released by the Financial times

• Started Biocon in 1978 in the garage of her rented house in Bangalore with a seed capital of Rs 10,000 (£100). The net worth of the company is now more than $900 million. • Biocon produces drugs for cancer, diabetes and auto immune diseases. Product pipeline includes

world’s first oral insulin, currently undergoing phase III trials.

• The company supports Arogya Raksha Yojana (Disease Protection Program/Health Help) which establishes clinics to offer clinical care, generic medicines and basic tests for those who cannot afford them. As of 2010, seven clinics each served a population of 50,000 patients living within a radius of 10 km, treating in total more than 300,000 people per year.

• Motivated by the illnesses of her husband and her mother from cancer and also the death of her best friend, Nilima Rovshen, Kiran established a 1,400-bed cancer care center, the Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Center in Bangalore. In 2011, she added a center for advanced therapeutics with a bone marrow transplant unit and a research center. Her goal is to create a world-class cancer centre.

Nominated by Kasturi Rao

Mary Robinson

Growing up in the patriarchal, conservative, Catholic world of 1970/80s Ireland, Mary Robinson was a revelation. Here was a woman who stood up for unpopular liberal causes such as contraception. At Trinity College Dublin, where I studied for BA and PhD, she was a female icon. That this outspoken, left-wing, academic-lawyer could be elected President of our land in 1990 was staggering. It changed my views of what women could achieve in the face of poor odds. In her subsequent diplomatic work on Human Rights she remained assured and forthright. Although her views aren't to everyone’s taste, it's impossible to ignore her. I remain in awe of this remarkable woman.

Zaha Hadid Iraqi/British Architect Winner of the Pritzker Prize 2004 First woman winner of the Stirling prize 2010 and 2011

Works include Maggie’s Centre Fife

Nominated by Ali Alhammer

Her buildings are distinctively

neofuturistic, characterised by

the powerful, curving forms of

her elongated structures with

multiple perspective points and

fragmented geometry to evoke

the chaos of modern life.

Marie Stopes DSc PhD 1880-1958 UK

• Paleobotanist, major contributor to coal classification.

• First woman academic in University of Manchester.

• campaigner for women’s rights

• Founded first Birth Control Clinic • Author of first book of first sex

manual: Married Love Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Irène Joliot-Curie: France • Marie Curie’s daughter

Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 for the discovery of artificial radioactivity with Frederic Joliot-Curie.

Barnard College Gold Medal for Meritorious Service to Science 1940 with Frederic Joliot-Curie

Officer of the Legion of Honor.

Nominated by Caroline Austin

Maria Goeppert-Mayer (Germany/USA) 1906-1972

Nominated by Anja Krippner-Heidenreich

“Never become a woman” – and she didn’t.

• “Never become a woman”, was she told by her father, paediatrician Prof. Friedrich Goeppert. This meant “go to university instead of becoming a housewife“

• Studied Physics (1924-1930) in Göttingen, Germany. Moved then with her husband to U.S.A.. Had two children.

• Became a professor at Chicago and not Baltimore where her husband was a professor (fear of nepotism prevented her to become a faculty member at the same university). This was a big mistake as she was awarded the Nobel Price in 1963 for proposing the nuclear shell model.

Valentina Tereshkova USSR 1937-

• Engineer and cosmonaught • First woman in space (1963) • Originally a textile factory

assembly worker and an amateur skydiver

• In 2013 (aged 76) she offered to go on a one-way trip to Mars if the opportunity arose

• Carried the Olympic flag at the 2014 Winter Olympics

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Second woman in space

Svetlana Yevgenyevna Savitskaya, Soviet Union

First woman to fly on a space station (Salyut 7, 1982). First woman to perform a spacewalk (July 25, 1984). First woman to make two spaceflights.

Nominated by Deepali Pal

She holds the records for longest single space flight by a woman Ninth woman to walk in space

Nominated by Deepali Pal

Sunita Williams, American of Indian descent

Helen Sharman OBE (UK)

Nominated by Penny Gray

Lilian Baylis (England) and Ninette de Valois (Ireland)

Between them these two ladies established our most enduring artistic companies: National Theatre, English National Opera and the Royal Ballet Dame Ninette de Valois was herself a dancer in the Ballet Russe and introduced Russian Ballet to the UK as well as many innovations in dance and nurtured our most famous dancers (including Fonteyn and Nureyev).

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Janina Ochojska ‘Janka’ (1955-) Poland

the founder and president of Polish Humanitarian Action (PAH) brought humanitarian activity to Poland and inspired the Polish people to care for those in need extremely modest woman, an undisputed authority in the field of humanitarian aid.

nominated by Martyna Pastok

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910-1994) UK

‘I was captured for life by chemistry and crystals’ ‘Live modestly and do serious things’

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1964 was awarded to Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin "for her determinations by X-ray techniques of

the structures of important biochemical substances".

Vitamin B12

insulin

Penicillin

Nominated by Martyna Pastok and Judith Unterlass

Henrietta Lacks USA Mother of 5 children who died aged 31 of cervical

cancer in 1951

Tumour cells that were taken without permission became the first immortal cancer cell line commonly known as HeLa cells

Cells were used to develop the polio vaccine in 1954 and still used worldwide in biomedical research.

Cells are still in use today in medical research facilities around the world and have helped make important breakthroughs in areas such as oncology, HIV and gene mapping

Nominated by Penny Gray and Lisa Jones

“It was only after reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot did I realise the tragic story of the cell line’s origins, how her family were kept in the dark for over 25 years of its existence and that this lady will never know the impact that she has had.”

Professor Dame Louise Johnson UK

Achievements • Inspiration and mentor to 1-2

generations of structural biologists

• Outstandingly accomplished and internationally respected scientist, with equal energy and engagement in family

• Dame of the British Empire, FRS, honorary doctor in many universities

Nominated by Martin Noble

Golda Meir 1898-1978 Israeli (born Kiev)

• Elected president of the Woman’s Labour Council of Histadrut at 30

• Israeli teacher, kibbutznik,

politician and the fourth Prime Minister of Israel. Meir was elected Prime Minister of Israel on March 17, 1969, after serving as Minister of Labour and Foreign Minister.

Nominated by Ian Wilson

Jessica Robson UK 1996-2014

• Diagnosed with sarcoma aged 14

• Raised over £28,000 in 3 years for cancer charities by setting up her own charity walk and annual summer balls

• Set up her own charity which is being continued by her family (£30,000 raised since she passed away)

facebook.com/Jessicassarcomaawareness Nominated by Emma Curry

Kate Adie OBE (1945 - ) UK Newcastle University graduate • One of a just a few women of her generation

reporting on difficult and dangerous stories.

• 1989 – 2003 BBC’s chief new correspondent

• Most well known for her coverage of: • American bombing of Tripoli in 1986 • Massacre in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

‘There are some countries where women are treated as the lowest of the low. But you’re not there on a crusade. You’re there to work as a reporter and to get the material back so you have to find a way of doing it.’ Nominated by Rosie Jackson

Tiananmen Square, 1989

Selma Lagerlöf (Sweden) 1858-1940 First woman to win the Nobel Prize in

literature (1909).

Occupation: writer, novelist; teacher

• Bibliography including: The Story of Gösta Berling (1896) Jerusalem (1901) Herr Arne's Hoard (1903) The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (1907)

• First female member of the Swedish Academy, the body that awards the Nobel Prize in literature.

• Active member of the women's suffrage movement in Sweden.

• She actively supported the Resistance against the Nazis. She sent her Nobel Prize medal to the government of Finland to help raise money to fight the Soviet Union . Nominated by Frida Ponthan

Born and brought up in Boldon, South Tyneside

BA Biochemistry, Oxford

PhD Medical Biophysics, Toronto

Fellow, Lecturer, Professor, and Director of the Laboratory of Molecular

Biophysics, University of Oxford (1993-2011)

Professor of Cancer Structural Biology,

NICR, Newcastle University (2011-)

MRC Suffrage Science award (2014)

Mother of three (a writer, a trainee doctor, and a 7-year old)

Nominated by Julie Tucker

Professor Jane Endicott UK

“Without Jane, I wouldn’t be working at the NICR today”

Mo Mowlam 1949-2005 UK • Lecturer in Political Science at

Newcastle University

• Labour Party Politician, MP for Redcar

• First female Northern Ireland Secretary – successful in restoring an IRA ceasefire and including Sinn Fein in multiparty talks and saw the signing of the Good Friday Agreement

• Told Ian Paisley to F@#K OFF

• She set up MoMo Helps, a charity to help Drug users

• Campaigner for Nuclear Disarmament

Her personal charisma, reputation for plain speaking and her fight against a brain tumour made her one of the most popular politicians. Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Head of Chemistry at Redborne Upper School, Ampthill, Bedfordshire

then part-time Chemistry teacher Biddenham Upper School, Bedford

Continued teaching and marking

exam papers despite developing an incurable and debilitating health

condition in 1992, finally retired in 2014 (aged 70!)

Breast cancer survivor

Volunteer of the Year Award,

Bedfordshire Police (2014)

Nominated by Julie Tucker

Ann Jones (b. 1944, Gateshead) UK

“Ann inspired me to apply to the University of York for a BSc in Chemistry with French, and encouraged many other pupils to consider a career in science.”

Elizabeth Fry 1780-1845 UK Quaker Prison reformer • Major driving force behind new

legislation to make the treatment of prisoners more humane.

• Founder of prison schools • Founder of homless shelters • Mother of eleven children, five sons

and six daughters

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Florence Nightingale 1820-1910 British • Celebrated English social reformer and

statistician, and the founder of modern nursing. • Manager of nursing in Crimean war • Established St Thomas’ Nursing School • Realised that most soldiers were killed by poor

living conditions. • Advocated sanitary living conditions therby

reducing peacetime deaths in the army. • Introduced sanitary design of hospitals and

sanitation in working-class homes

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Mary Wollstonecraft 1759-1797 UK • Writer, philosopher, and advocate of

women’s rights • Best known for A Vindication of the

Rights of Women (1792) in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education.

• Had an unconventional life had 2 affairs (one resulting in her daughter) before marrying William Goodwin one of the founding anarchists.

• Died 10 days after birth of her second daughter Mary, later Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Germaine Greer 1939 Australia • Anarchist, Theorist, academic and

journalist • Feminist writer: The Female Eunuch

1970 arguing that the “traditional” nuclear family in a consumerist society represses women

• She asserts that women's liberation means embracing sex differences in a positive fashion – a struggle for the freedom of women to define their own values, order their own priorities and determine their own fates.

• In contrast, Greer sees equality as mere assimilation and "settling" to live the lives of "unfree men".[

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Caitlin Moran 1975 UK

Writer, broadcaster, TV critic and feminist

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

The Greenham Common Women • Women-only peace protest • Started Sept 1981 when 36 women

chained themselves to the base fence in protest against nuclear power

• In December 1982, 30,000 women responded to a chain letter (no mobile phones in those days) and joined hands around the base at the Embrace the Base event

• 1 April 1983, 70,000 protesters formed a 14 miles (23 km) human chain from Greenham to Aldermaston (Atomic weapons establishment)

• Finally disbanded in 2000 • Established a new style of protest

continued today, e.g. the “Occupy” movement Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Grace Darling 1815-1842 UK

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

• Daughter of lighthouse keeper on Farne Islands

• Together they rescued survivors of the Forfarshire that had broken in 2 on rocks in a storm 1838

• Became a national heroine and Duke of Northumberland became her guardian

• Died of TB 1842 aged 26

Sylvia Scaffardi (1902 - 2001) and Shami Chakrabati CBE (1969) UK

With her husband Ronald Kidd formed the National Council for Civil Liberties in 1934 after observing the Hunger Marches and the policing of the events

• Director of Liberty since 2003 • Chancellor of University of Essex • described in The Times as "the

most effective public affairs lobbyist of the past 20 years”

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Malala Yousafzai 1997 Pakistan

• Youngest winner of Nobel Prize

• Campaigner for girls education • When she was 11–12, Yousafzai wrote a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC detailing her life

under Taliban occupation, their attempts to take control of the valley, and her views on promoting education for girls . Shot in the head on way to school in 2012, treated in Birmingham, UK

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Maya Angelou 1928-1914 USA

• American author, poet, dancer, actress, and singer

• Civil Rights activist

• Best known books: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and On the Pulse of Morning

Nominated by Stuart McCracken

Professor Elizabeth Molyneux OBE UK

Liz Molyneux has served the children of Africa for well over 30 years making numerous advances despite minimal resources. She is the mother of paediatric oncology In sub Saharan Africa as well as developing Kangaroo care for newborn babies, a CPAP machine and refining triage in A and E departments. She is humble, loving and cares deeply about her patients and their families . In addition she is an excellent teacher and an inspiration to countless numbers of health professionals. She is a true hero and inspiration who has dedicated her life to others.

Nominated by Simon Bailey

An outstanding scientist and inspirational mentor, who led many other researchers to develop their own path in science. Barbara came to Newcastle University after a very successful time at Sussex, where she had published a seminal paper in Nature on the potential of PARP inhibitors for cancer therapy. Barbara is a great thinker and loved to read the scientific literature on a wide range of topics. She often had a ‘hunch’ about an idea that frequently turned out to be an important and novel observation. Barbara went on to pursue work on PARP inhibitors, and was part of the team at Newcastle that was awarded the inaugural Cancer Research UK Prize for Translational Cancer Research in 2010, for the discovery of PARP inhibitors. PARP inhibitors are now being developed all over the world, and it is estimated that around 7,000 women (many with breast or ovarian cancer) have been treated with them. Nominated by Elaine Willmore

Barbara Durkacz UK

Rosa Beddington FRS (UK) (1956-2001)

Combined classical embryology with molecular genetics to established many of the key features of gastrulation in the developing mouse embryo

In a relatively brief career she contributed important principles and insights into the mechanism governing the acquisition of anterior–posterior fates in the mammalian embryo

An expert in micromanipulation, she performed many of these seminal experiments with her own hands

Also a talented artist. The drawing depicts Rosa’s view of the gene trap: two mice with their tails caught in a trap from which DNA sequence can be read

Nominated by Phil Elstob

Margaret Chan China

• Director-General of WHO since 2006

• Before being elected Director-General, Dr Chan was WHO Assistant Director-General for Communicable Diseases as well as Representative of the Director-General for Pandemic Influenza.

• Prior to joining WHO, she was Director of Health in Hong Kong. During her nine-year tenure as director, Dr Chan confronted the first human outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza in 1997. She successfully defeated the spate of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Hong Kong in 2003. She also launched new services to prevent disease and promote better health.

Niminated by Nicola Curtin

Mother Teresa 1910-97 Macedonia/India

• Founded Missionaries of Charity that run hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis; soup kitchens; dispensaries and mobile clinics; children's and family counselling programmes; orphanages; and schools

• Awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace 1979

• Beatified 2003

Aung San Suu Kyi 1945 Burma • Chairperson of the National

League for Democracy

• One of most famous political prisoners -Under house arrest 1989-2010

• Nobel Peace Prize 1991

• 4th person ever to be awarded honorary citizenship of Canada

"In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth, women are not merely tolerated but valued."

Nominated by Debbie Hicks

Billie Jean King b 1943 USA • US tennis legend and

the winner of 20 Wimbledon titles and 39 Grand Slams

• Famously beat Bobby Riggs in 1973 for a $100,000 prize in "The Battle of the sexes" after he said to her that men were superior athletes.

Nominated by Debbie Hicks

Benazir Bhutto 1953-2007 Pakistan

• She was the 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan (1993-1996) and the first woman to head a Muslim state.

• During her leadership, she ended military dictatorship in her country and fought for women rights.

• She was assassinated in a suicide attack in 2007.

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Michelle Obama 1964 USA

• Raised in a one bedroom apartment in Chicago before she went on to excel in academics and study at Princeton and Harvard.

• Advocate of poverty awareness and healthy eating.

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Madonna 1958 USA

• Achieved an unprecedented level of power and control for a woman in the entertainment industry.

• Sold more than 300 million records of her music.

• Songwriter, actor, film director, fashion designer and writer of children's books.

"I'm tough, I'm ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay." Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Amelia Earhart (1897-1937) USA • First woman to ever fly

solo across the Atlantic in 1932

• First woman pilot in 1935 after flying solo from Hawaii to California.

• She embarked upon her lifelong dream of flying across the world in 1937, however, her flight went missing and she was never seen again.

"Please know that I am aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be a challenge to others."

Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928) UK • Born in Mancherster to

politically active parents • Leader of the Brittish

suffragette movement • Her work is recognised as

a crucial element in getting women the vote in Britain

• Tried to join the labour party after becoming froend of Keir Hardy but was refused membership because of her sex

• Mother of 5 children (widow and lone parent) much of her politial activities undertaken after her husbands death with her daughters Christabel, Sylvia and Adele

“We have to free half of the human race, the women, so that they can help the other half”

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

JK Rowling 1965 UK "It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default." Breaking through the trap of poverty until she finished writing her first book for the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling has now sold 400 million copies worldwide. She went on from living on state benefits in the UK to becoming a multi-millionaire after her book's success in a matter of five years. Sales £238 million Supporter of many charities and the Labour party

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Hilary Clinton 1947 USA "In too many instances, the march to globalisation has also meant the marginalisation of women and girls. And that must change." Running in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, Clinton won far more primaries and delegates than any other female candidate in American history, but narrowly lost the nomination to Obama. Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Indira Ghandi 1917-84 India

• The second-longest-serving Prime Minister of India (1966-1977) and the only woman to hold the office

• In 2001, Gandhi was voted the greatest Indian Prime Minister in a poll organised by India Today

• However also politically ruthless, centralised power and went to war with Pakistan.

• Assassinated by her body guard 1984

Ada Yonath 1939 Israel • Crystallographer best

known for pioneering work on structure of the ribosome

• First woman in 45 years to win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2009. However, she said herself that there was nothing special about a woman winning the Prize

"Survival is far more complicated, much more demanding (than doing science), you can always try another approach; even change your subject when a scientific strategy or experiment fails. But when you are hungry you are hungry!" (She was exposed to extreme poverty when her father died prematurely. By 11 she was already working and taking care of her family.)

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Gerty Cori 1896-1957 USA • Born Prague (then Austro-Hungarian

Empire) • After WWI emigrated to USA and

worked with her husband at Roswell Park Cancer Inst on carbohydrate metabolism. They published fifty papers while at Roswell. Gerty Cori published eleven articles as the sole author. In 1929, they proposed the theoretical cycle that later won them the Nobel Prize in 1947

• Moved to Washington where Despite her research background, Gerty was only offered a position as a research associate at a salary one tenth of that received by her husband and she was warned that she might harm her husband's career.

• Third woman to win a Nobel Prize in science

The Cori crater on the moon and Cori crater on venus are named after her

Rosalyn S. Yalow 1921-2011 USA

• Medical Physicist • She was the only

woman among 400 members at the University of Illinois, and the first since 1917

• Developed Radioimmunoassay

• Awarded Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1977

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Barbara McClintock 1902-1992 USA • One of the world's most

distinguished cytogeneticists • She developed the technique to

visualize chromosomes and used microscopy to demonstrate many fundamental genetic ideas, including genetic recombination by crossover during meiosis

• Produced the first genetic map of maize

• Demonstrated the role of centromeres and telomeres

• Discovered transposition and genes are responsible for turning physical characteristics on and off. Developed theories to explain the suppression and expression of genetic information. Due to skepticism of her research and its implications, she stopped publishing her data in 1953. Awarded Nobel Prize for Physiology or

Medicine for her work on transposons in 1983

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

“If you know you are on the right track, if you have this inner knowledge, then nobody can put you off….no matter what they say”

Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard 1942 Germany • Developmental genetecist • Her work with Eric Wieschaus

resulted in the discovery that of Drosophilla’s 20,000 genes, about 5,000 are deemed important to early development and about 140 are essential.

• Studied the migration of cells from sites of origin to sites of destination in zebra fish embryos.

• Her investigations in zebra fish have helped elucidate genes and other cellular substances involved in human development and in the regulation of normal human physiology

• In addition to the Nobel Prize, she received the Leibniz Prize (1986) and the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award (1991).

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine 1995

Linda B Buck 1947 USA • Physiologist • Her work with Richard Axel

demonstrated a family of 1,000 genes for G protein-coupled receptors allowing genetic and molecular characterisation of olfactory system

• Discovered sense of smell is virtually identical in rats, humans, and other animals, but humans have only about 350 types of working olfactory receptors. Nevertheless, the genes that encode olfactory receptors in humans account for about 3 percent of all human genes.

Awarded Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2004 with Richard Axel for discoveries concerning the olfactory system.

As a woman in science, I sincerely hope that my receiving a Nobel Prize will send a message to young women everywhere that the doors are open to them and that they should follow their dreams.

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Franƈoise Barré-Sinoussi 1947 France

• On 24 February 2009, she became the first female Nobel Prize winner to be elected to the Academy of Sciences, France.

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Elizabeth H. Blackburn 1948 Australia/USA and Carol W. Greider 1961 USA

• Awarded Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Jack W Szostak for elucidating nature of telomeres and discovering telomerase

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Mary Anning 1799-1847 UK • She taught herself geology,

anatomy and paleontology • Excavated first Ichthyosaurus and 2

Plesiosaurus skeletons • She became well known in

geological circles in Britain, Europe, and America, and was consulted on issues of anatomy as well as about collecting fossils.

• As a woman, she was not eligible to join the Geological society and she did not always receive full credit for her scientific contributions.

• She struggled financially for much of her life. Her family was poor, her father died when she was 11

"The world has used me so unkindly, I fear it has made me suspicious of everyone." Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Doreen Lawrence OBE 1952 Jamaican/British

• Mother of Stephen Lawrence murdered in a racist attack

• Tireless campaigner for justice for her son as well as for other victims of racist violence

• She promoted reforms of the police service, and founded the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust.

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

"Black people are still dying on the streets and in the back of police vans. For me, institutional racism is ingrained and it's hard to think of how it will be eradicated from the police force."

Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) USA • American writer, She wrote extensively on a

range of social issues from homelessness to women’s equality and played a role in promoting progressive ideas, which were later taken up by women rights activists and social campaigners.

• She believed in social reform from women’s rights to the prison system. She believed women had a right to a full education that would enable women to be more independent.

• She abhorred slavery and felt the Native Americans had been unfairly treated.

• In 1845, she published – ‘Women in the Nineteenth Century‘ which was influential in changing perceptions about men and women, and was one of the most important early feminist works. She argued for equality and women being more self-dependent and less dependent on men..

“We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would have every path laid open to Woman as freely as to Man…”

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Susan B. Anthony 1820-1906 USA

• Prominent American suffragist and civil rights activist.

• She campaigned against slavery and for women to be given the vote.

• Co-founder of the Women’s Temperance movement which campaigned to tighten up laws on alcohol.

• Played a significant role in raising the profile of equal rights for women, and is credited with playing a significant role in the passing of the nineteenth amendment (1920) which gave women the vote.

“Men their rights and nothing more, women their rights and nothing less.

Emily Murphy (1868-1933) Canada

• Canadian equal rights activist. • She became Canada’s first female

magistrate and helped to repeal discriminatory legislation against women.

• In 1927 she joined forces with four other Canadian women who sought to challenge an old Canadian law that said, “women should not be counted as persons”

• In 1929, she succeed in gaining a ruling that stated Women were legal persons under the B.N.A act and so could serve as a member of Congress and judges.

“The world loves a peaceful man, but it gives way to a strenuous kicker.”

Nominated by Nicola Curtin

Rosa Luxemburg 1870-1919 Polish German

• A leading Marxist revolutionary, Rosa Luxemburg sought to bring Social revolution to Germany. She wrote fiercely against German imperialism and for international socialism.

• In 1919, she was murdered after a failed attempt to bring about a Communist revolution in Germany.

Helen Keller (1880-1968) USA • American author, political activist and

campaigner for deaf and blind charities. • She became the first deaf-blind person to attain

a bachelors degree and became an influential campaigner for social, political and disability issues.

• Her public profile helped de-stigmatise blindness and deafness, and she was seen as a powerful example of someone overcoming difficult circumstances.

• She was a strong supporter of the American Socialist party and joined the party in 1909.

• She wished to see a fairer distribution of income, and an end to the inequality of Capitalist society. She said she became a more convinced socialist after the 1912 miners strike. Her book ‘Out of the Dark‘ (1913) includes several essays on socialism.

• In 1912, she joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW); as well as advocating socialism, Keller was a pacifist and opposed the American involvement in World War One.

Annie Besant (1847-1933) UK

• Political reformer, women’s rights activist.

• Became involved with union activism, including the Bloody Sunday demonstration and the London Matchgirl’s strike 1888

• Leading speaker for the Fabian Society

• Became involved in Indian politics and elected as president of the India National Congress in 1917. Continued to campaign for Indian independence until her death

Simone de Beauvoir 1908-1986 France • One of the leading

existentialist philosophers of the Twentieth Century.

• Developed a close personal and intellectual relationship with Jean Paul Satre.

• Her book “The Second Sex” depicted the traditions of sexism that dominated society and history. It was a defining book for the feminist movement.

Billie Holiday 1915 –1959 USA

• American jazz singer and songwriter.

• Nicknamed Lady Day • Was a seminal influence on

jazz and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo.

• Above all, she was admired for her deeply personal and intimate approach to singing.

I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was six years old.

Margaret Thatcher 1925-2013 UK • Britain’s first female prime

minister, who became a pivotal figure in British and world politics so we do have to include her

• As education minister she withdrew free school milk earning the nickname “Maggie Thatcher – the milk snatcher”

• She believed that a harsh implementation of Monetarism was necessary to overcome the economic ills of inflation and low growth

• Wanted to crush the unions, stockpiled coal before taking on the NUM and the demise of the British Coal industry

• Her controversial and dogmatic decision to stick with the poll tax in the face of opposition that led to violent protest and her popularity plummeted.

“To me, consensus seems to be: the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that need to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner ‘I stand for consensus’?”

Betty Williams 1943 and Mairead Maguire 1944 Ireland

• Co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for their work as a cofounders of Community of Peace People, an organisation dedicated to promoting a peaceful resolution to The Troubles in Northern Ireland.

• In 2006, they were co-founders of the Nobel Women’s Initiative along with sister Nobel Peace Laureates: Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Jody Williams and Rigoberta Menchu Tum.

Tegla Loroupe 1997 Kenya • Held the women’s marathon world

record and won many prestigious marathons.

• Since retiring from running, she has devoted herself to various initiatives promoting peace, education and women’s rights.

In her native Kenya, her Peace Race and Peace Foundation have been widely praised for helping to end tribal conflict.

Amy Johnson 1903-1941

Amy Johnson was the first female pilot to fly alone from Britain to Australia, which she achieved at the age of 26. Her flying career began in 1928 and other triumphs included becoming the first female ground engineer licensed by the Air Ministry, and being awarded the C.B.E. for her flying achievements

Jane Goodall 1934 UK

• She is famous for her study of chimpanzees in Tanzania. Goodall discovered primate behaviours that have continued to define the course of this science field. She is the world’s foremost authority on these animals as she closely observed their behaviour for about a quarter of a century.

• Her research overturned two long standing beliefs; one being that humans were the only animals that could construct and utilize tools, and the other that chimps were passive-vegetarians.

• Goodall is a highly respected figure in the scientific community and is a strong advocate of ecological preservation.

Ada Lovelace 1815-1852UK

The world’s first computer programmer • Born from a brief marriage between

the poet Lord Byron and Annabella Milbanke, Lovelace was brought up by her mother and encouraged to study mathematics – an extremely unusual pursuit for women at the time.

• She had a talent for logical subjects, and she is now known as ‘the world’s first computer programmer’, having invented a basic algorithm that worked much like modern computer codes.

• She also predicted the importance and power of such machines in the future, at a time when her peers assumed the full potential for computers was basic algebra.

Hypatia of Alexandria (c.355-415): • Greek philosopher, and one of

the first female scientists in recorded history.

• She became the world’s leading mathematician and astronomer: building on her father’s already detailed star charts, advancing work on geometry and fighting to preserve the Greeks’ strong scientific heritage in times of passionate religious conflict.

• It was Hypatia’s popularity as a teacher of philosophy that made her an enemy of some religious groups and eventually led to her brutal murder by a Christian mob.

• She has since become a powerful symbol for intellectual pursuit in the face of ignorance and prejudice.

Mary Somerville 1780-1872 UK • Born Jedburgh: Science writer and

polymath • Listening in to her brother’s maths

lesson, she answered when he could not; impressed, his tutor allowed her to continue with lessons unofficially. However, following the death of her sister at age ten, her parents forbade Mary from further study, believing it had contributed to her sister's death. This did not deter her from studying on her own, in secret.

• Studied Maths and astronomy • Only the second woman to receive

recognition in the UK for her scientific experiments, which were on magnetism.

• Nominated to be jointly the first female member of the Royal Astronomical Society at the same time as Caroline Herschel

Jocelyn Bell Burnell (1943-):

• Made one of the greatest astrophysical breakthroughs of the 20th century while still only a postgraduate student at Cambridge University.

• After analysing miles of printouts of astronomical data, she spotted an unusual signal that she could not explain.

• Despite her supervisors suggesting she ignore the anomaly, she persisted. The anomaly turned out to be the first ever detection of a pulsar – a fantastically dense and quickly spinning star made of neutrons.

The discovery led to a Nobel Prize for her two supervisors, but not for her. However, refusing to be demoralised, she went on to become a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Dame, and the first female president of the Institute of Physics.

Hertha Ayrton 1854-1923 UK

• Engineer, mathematician, physicist and inventor

• Awarded the Hughes Medal by the Royal Society for her work on electric arcs and ripples in sand and water.

• In 1902 she became the first woman to be nominated as a fellow of the Royal Society, although as a married woman she could not accept

Elsie Widdowson 1906-2000 UK • Studied Chemistry at Imperial College

becoming one of the first women graduates.

• PhD in chemistry in 1931 for her thesis on the carbohydrate content of apples. Department of Plant Physiology at Imperial College

• She and her scientific partner, Robert McCance, oversaw the first compulsory addition of a substance to food in the early 1940s, when calcium was introduced to bread.

• They were also responsible for formulating war-time rationing - some experts say that under their diet of mainly bread, vegetables and potatoes, that was when Britain was at its healthiest.

We did not believe that we should use human subjects in experiments that involved any pain hardship or danger, unless we had made the same experiments on ourselves

Anne McLaren (1927–2007) • Her research in the basic science

underlying the treatment of infertility helped develop several human-assisted reproduction techniques.

• Her work also helped further recognition of the importance of stem cells in the treatment of human disease.

• As she put it, she was interested in "everything involved in getting from one generation to the next".

• Both of these areas raise serious ethical issues, and Anne was a leading contributor to the debates in the UK needed to develop acceptable public policy regulating them.

• Member of the Communist Party of Britain

Among her many honours, she was the first woman to hold office as vice-president and foreign secretary in the more than 300-year-old Royal Society.

Caroline Herschel 1750-1848

Esther Lederberg 1922-2006 • She lay the groundwork

for future discoveries on genetic inheritance in bacteria, gene regulation, and genetic recombination.

• Discovered λ phage and invented replica plating for the identification of antibiotic resistance

But it was her husband Joshua who got the Nobel Prize for this work

Chien-Shiung Wu 1912-997 China/USA

• She overturned a law of physics and participated in the Manhattan Project -development of the atom bomb.

• of the best experimental physicists of her time

• Using Cobalt 60 she help disprove the law of parity with two theoretical physicists, Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang.

This milestone in physics led to a Nobel Prize in 1957 for Yang and Lee—but not for Wu, who was left out despite her critical role.

Collaborated with Otto Hahn who published the data without her as an author so he got the Nobel Prize and she didn’t

Dr. Hayat Sindi is a Saudi Arabian medical scientist and one of the first female members of the Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia. She is famous for making major contributions to point-of-care medical testing and biotechnology. She was ranked by Arabian Business as the 19th most influential Arab in the world and the ninth most influential Arab woman. In 2012 She was also named a 2011 Emerging Explorer by the National Geographic Society. Sindi was appointed by UNESCO as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for her efforts in promoting science education in the Middle East, especially for girls. She was also on Newsweek's list of 150 women who shook the world for that year Nominated by Mohammed Nahari

Hayat Sindi Saudi Arabia