sign in sign up
<<
Home , Barbara McClintock, Grace Hopper, Lene Hau, Nancy Roman

inteGIRLS Puzzle Hunt Biographies of Women in STEM inteGIRLS Puzzle Hunt Biographies of Women in STEM Lene Hau — Compound Interest 1 — Frogmented 1 Gladys West — Galaxy Positioning System 1 Barbara McClintock — Jumping 2 Zonia Baber — Locations United 2 Lizzie Magie — Monopoly: inteGIRLS Edition 2 Fabiola Gianotti — Prima 3 Henrietta Swan Leavitt — Variables 3 Emmy Noether — Don’t Think Outside The Box 3 — Four-rest 4 Agnes Arber — He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not 4 — 4 Chien-Shiung Wu — Interview With An Electron 5 — Similar Similes 5 Maria Agnesi — The User's Handbook To Mathematics 5 Marian Diamond — Think Fast 6 — Contagion 6 Marguerite Perey — Grocery Shopping 6 — Star Sailor 7

Lene Hau — Compound Interest

Lene Hau (1959 - ) is a Danish theoretical who currently teaches Applied ​ at Harvard. Much of her work involves the Bose-Einstein condensate, a new form of . In 1999, she was able to slow down light using the Bose-Einstein condensate, and in 2001, she became the first person to completely stop a beam of light. In 2006, Hau used the condensate to transform a from light to a matter wave, and then return it to its original state.

Referenced In: Compound Interest ​

Grace Hopper — Frogmented

Grace Hopper (1906 - 1992) was an American scientist and US Navy rear ​ who invented one of the first linkers and developed the machine-independent coding language COBOL. COBOL was inspired by her idea of a language based on English words, a foundation that many coding languages have since replicated. She was also part of the team that created the UNIVAC I computer, the first general computer meant for business application. Hopper coined the term .

Referenced In: Frogmented ​

Gladys West — Galaxy Positioning System

Dr. Gladys West (1930 - ) is an American mathematician that is responsible for the ​ mathematics and programming that brought about the invention of the Global Positioning System (GPS). Her important work at the U.S. Naval Weapons Laboratory helped with outer space discoveries related to planets in the solar system as well as modelled the shape of Earth, greatly aiding mathematical models of our universe.

Referenced In: Galaxy Positioning System ​

1 Barbara McClintock — Jumping Gene

Barbara McClintock (1902 - 1992) was an American scientist who was a pioneer in the field ​ of genetics. She was awarded the 1983 in or Medicine for her discovery of “”, also known as “jumping ”, which are sequences of DNA that can move around the DNA of an organism.

Referenced In: Jumping Gene ​

Zonia Baber — Locations United

Zonia Baber (1862 - 1956) was an American geologist and geographer who was best for ​ reforming how geography is taught and as a field overall. She helped it change from being simply focused upon colonization to something that is more about connection and understanding between different cultures. She also advocated for National Parks, helping the Sand Dunes of Indiana gain National Park status.

Referenced In: Locations United ​

Lizzie Magie — Monopoly: inteGIRLS Edition

Lizzie Magie (1866 - 1948) was the inventor of the earliest version of the Landlord’s Game ​ which eventually became the game of Monopoly we know and love today. Her work as a game designer helped create a new way to communicate economic ideas to the public. She was not given the credit for her game initially, but now, more than a century later, she is gaining recognition.

Referenced In: Monopoly: inteGIRLS Edition ​

2 Fabiola Gianotti — Prima

Fabiola Gianotti (1960 - ) is an Italian experimental particle physicist and the current ​ director-general of CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). In 2012, Dr. Gianotti led and presented the discovery of the Higgs Boson. She is the first female director-general of CERN and the first to be appointed to a second full five-year term.

Before she was interested in physics, Gianotti dreamed of becoming a prima ballerina. She studied piano in college but turned to physics as a career in grad school.

Referenced In: Prima ​

Henrietta Swan Leavitt — Variables

Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868 - 1921) was an American astronomer who worked at the ​ Harvard College Observatory. While examining photographic plates, Leavitt discovered the relation between star brightness and the period of Cepheid variables, stars that could be used to discover the distance of faraway galaxies. Scientist Edwin Hubble used her period-luminosity relation to establish that the universe is expanding.

Referenced In: Variables ​

Emmy Noether — Don’t Think Outside The Box

Emmy Noether (1882 - 1935) was a German mathematician and physicist. She is most well known for her namesake theorem, which proved that every symmetry of the Lagrangian of a physical system implied a quantity that is conserved in that system. For example, a system which has time symmetry (meaning the laws of physics work the same at every moment in time) will have energy conserved in that system. She also made significant contributions to abstract algebra.

Referenced In: Don’t Think Outside The Box ​

3 Rachel Carson — Four-rest

Rachel Carson (1907 - 1964) was an American marine biologist, author, and ​ conservationist who is most well known for her book, Silent Spring, which brought many environmental concerns to light in America. Her work helped push forward the global environmental movement and informed the general public about the issue.

Referenced In: Four-rest ​

Agnes Arber — He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

Agnes Arber (1879 - 1960) was a British botanist, as well as an anatomist and a writer of ​ . She first worked in the laboratory of Ethel Sargant, where she prepared specimens for microscopes and researched seedling structures. Her later work revolves around morphology of monocot . In addition to publishing research, she wrote many books, such as Herbals, their origin and and Water Plants: A Study of ​ ​ ​ Aquatic Angiosperms. ​

Referenced In: He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not ​

Katherine Johnson — Hidden Figures

Katherine Johnson (1918 - 2020) was an American mathematician whose calculations of ​ orbital mechanics were instrumental to the success of the first American manned spaceflights. Johnson’s work included calculating trajectories, launch windows, and emergency return paths for Project Mercury and the Apollo missions. She was also portrayed by Taraji P. Henson as the protagonist in the movie Hidden Figures. ​ ​

Referenced In: Hidden Figures ​

4 Chien-Shiung Wu — Interview With An Electron

As mentioned in the puzzle, Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997) is best known for a 1956 experiment in which she proved that electrons in beta decay were always emitted in the direction opposite to their spin. This proved that beta decay did not conserve parity (basically a mirror reflection), since if parity were conserved, the electrons would be emitted in a direction independent of spin. Building on her work, the 1957 was given to Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang for their proposal that parity is not conserved, but not for Wu's experimental work.

Referenced In: Interview With An Electron ​

Ada Lovelace — Similar Similes

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (1815 – 1852) was an English mathematician ​ and writer primarily known for her work with the proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Recognizing the general-purpose potential of the machine, she wrote the first algorithm intended to be run from such a device, making her widely recognized as the first programmer. She described her approach as "poetical science" and herself as an "Analyst (& Metaphysician)".

Referenced In: Similar Similes ​

Maria Agnesi — The User's Handbook To Mathematics

Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718 - 1799) was born in Milan, Italy and was a mathematician, ​ philosopher, and humanitarian. She is most well known for her textbook Instituzioni analitiche ​ ad uso della gioventù italiana, or Basic Principles of Analysis, which was one of the first textbooks ​ ​ ​ to teach differential and integral calculus and was translated for use across Europe.

Referenced In: The User's Handbook To Mathematics ​

5 Marian Diamond — Think Fast

Marian Diamond (1926 - 2017) was an American neuroscientist and later professor of ​ anatomy at the University of California, Berkeley. In her work, including research on the brain of Albert Einstein, she has spurred on an emphasis on the importance of glial cells in the brain and physical structures, changing the field of neurobiology.

Referenced In: Think Fast ​

Antonia Novello — Contagion

Dr. Antonia Novello (1944 - ) is a Puerto Rican physician and public health administrator. She ​ served as the 14th Surgeon General of the United States from 1990 to 1993, the first woman, the first Hispanic, and the first person of color to take on the role. As surgeon general, Dr. Novello focused on the health of women, children, and minorities, and she worked to combat underage drinking, smoking, and AIDS.

Referenced In: Contagion ​

Marguerite Perey — Grocery Shopping

Marguerite Perey (1909 - 1975) was a French physicist and chemist as well as a student of ​ Marie Curie. She is most well known for her discovery of the element Francium and being the first woman to be elected to the French Académie des Sciences. She promoted better safety measures for scientists working with radium and helped advance nuclear research.

Referenced In: Grocery Shopping ​

6 Nancy Roman — Star Sailor

Nancy Grace Roman (1925 – 2018) was an American astronomer and women’s science advocate who served as the first female executive at NASA and was NASA’s first Chief of starting in the early 1960s. She was known as the “Mother of Hubble” due to her foundational role in planning the space telescope. It was th announced on May 20 ,​ 2020 that the Wide Field Survey Telescope ​ (WFIRST) would be named the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in her honor.

Referenced In: Star Sailor ​

“If you enjoy puzzles, science or engineering may be the field for you. Scientific research and engineering is a continuous series of solving puzzles. It is also a continuous process of learning new things, whether you discover them or study the work of others.” - Nancy Roman

7