STEMFrom is celebrating Pride all month long with special blog posts about the LGBTQ+ STEM community!
Today’s post will highlight three lesbians in STEM and their influences on the industry today!
Sara Josephine Baker
Born on November 15th, 1873, Sara Josephine Baker was a physician who focused predominantly on public health. At sixteen she refused a Vassar scholarship. She wanted to be a physician instead, going against family who believed women were incapable of succeeding in that profession.
In 1894, she attended the Women’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary. She worked along many notable women physicians, such as Mary Putnam Jacob. Post graduation, she was awarded an internship at the New England Hospital for Women and Children. During which she witnessed the relationship between poverty and illness, a subject she would specialize in for the rest of her life.
To aid the growth of her private practice opened in 1899, Dr. Sara Josephine Baker worked as a medical examiner and medical inspector for New York City. Her association with city health administration provided an easy segway into her position as assistant commissioner of health by 1907.
Notable achievements include work on the smallpox vaccine, discovering Mary Mallon (unknowing perpetrator of a typhoid epidemic; pop culture reference as “Typhoid Mary”), and developing city funded programs for the Bureau of Child Hygiene. Additionally, she educated the city’s immigrant community about health. When she retired in 1923, New York City boasted the lowest mortality rate of all American cities.
She was known for employing wardrobe strategies to reduce her femininity. She wore suits, stiff collars and ties; anything masculine. She spent post-retirement with Ida Alexa Ross Wylie, a writer from Australia. Although Baker never officially came out, their relationship was extensively documented.
Dr. Sara Josephine Baker was a remarkable physician who was instrumental in improving public health and safety. She defied stereotypes of women at the time and made history in the process.
Sally Ride
Holding the incredible honor of the first American woman in space, Sally Ride was an astronaut. Born on May 26th, 1951, in Encino, Los Angeles, California to a supportive family who encouraged her and her sister to pursue any interests they desired. Growing up she had an affinity for tennis, starting to play at age 10. She won a scholarship and ranked in the top 20 nationally on the junior tennis circuit as a teenager.
After attempting a career in tennis, Sally decided to attend Standford University. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Bachelor of Science in physics. She earned master's and doctorate degrees in physics in 1975 and 1978, respectively. She would respond to a newspaper ad from NASA in 1977, who were searching for space mission specialists at the time. Out of the 5 women selected, she stood out with her natural athletics.
She boarded the space shuttle Challenger on June 18th, 1983, awarding her title of the first American woman in space. On the Challenger, Sally operated a mechanical arm and launched two communication satellites. Prior to this, she endured several interviews laden with misogynistic questions, such as if space would affect her fertility. While she answered them gracefully, she would later state “it’s too bad our society isn’t further along.”
She would go on another mission on October 5th, 1984, named the STS-41G. Shortly later she would accept the role of special assistant to the NASA administrator. Following these roles, she was the Director of the California Space Science Institute, then a physicist and physics professor. She also spent time on the Advisory Board of the National Women’s History Musuem. She was a guest speaker at an event at University of California of Irvine, and our founder was fortunate to meet her and hear her speak about her experience in 2004.
Sally Ride passed away on July 23rd, 2012, from pancreatic cancer. While she never shared her personal life, a childhood friend named Tam O’Shaughnessy would reveal their lifelong friendship and subsequent romance. This revelation made Sally Ride the first known gay astronaut.
Dr. Sally Ride called for science education improvement for young women and girls, wanting to create a larger feminine presence in the Science field. Sally Ride Science was also created, an organization made by Ride and O’Shaughnessy dedicated to encouraging children to take part in STEM. Her legacy is unmatched.
Nergis Mavalvala
Nergis Mavalvala is a renowned physicist and pioneer. She was born in Lahore, Pakistan in 1968, but grew up in Karachi. She would move to America in 1986 to earn a bachelor’s degree in physics and astronomy. She earned a PhD at MIT. While she was earning her PhD, alongside Rainer Weiss, she curated gravitational-wave technologies that applied to LIGO. This created scientific discoveries that would land Weiss, Mavalvala and their colleagues the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics.
Nergis is openly lesbian and is outspoken about LGBTQA+ and women’s rights. Growing up without gender roles, she believed men and women to be equal and that “women can, must and should do anything and everything.” (Dawn Magazine) She’s an inspiration to aspiring Indian women scientists and many others. We imagine she has more discoveries and breakthroughs to come!
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