Unfortunately, not every major innovation makes international fame and the front page of history books. Let's take a moment to recognize major innovators in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), that flew too far under the radar.
1902: Discovery of Radium. Marie Curie, a Polish-French physicist, discovers the element radium with her husband Pierre Currie and pioneers the field of radioactivity. Marie would become the first woman to win a Nobel Prize for her achievements.
1938: Discovery of Nuclear Fission. Lise Meitner, an Austrian-Swedish physicist, discovers nuclear fission working with her nephew Otto Robert Frisch. Only Frisch would later receive the 1944 Nobel Prize for this discovery, with Meitner’s accomplishments being overlooked.
1961: Calculations sent the first U.S. Astronaut to Space. The first African-American woman employed as a NASA scientist, Katherine Johnson, calculations of trajectories, launch windows, and emergency return paths enabled human-crewed spaceflight.
1972: Discovery of Malaria Treatment. Tu YouYou, a Chinese chemist, discovers the first treatment for malaria. This discovery prevents millions of deaths yearly from the disease.
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2019: First Image of a Black Hole. Katie Bouman, an American computer scientist, led the development of a program that captured the first image of a black hole. Capturing a picture of a black hole was something previously thought impossible.
2020: Development of a COVID Vaccine. The research of Katalin Karikó, a Hungarian-American biochemist, into mRNA enabled BioNTech and Moderna to develop COVID-19 vaccines.
Did we miss your favorite STEM achievement? Tell us in the comments.
Sources:
Ada Lovelace Biography