Exactly one week from today the 2023 Nobel award winners will be announced.
Exactly 120 years ago the first woman was awarded a Nobel Award: Marie Curie.
There has been such incredible work that has happened since 1903 both in STEM, the technology to enable even bigger and better scientific advancements. There has also been a significant movement in women's engagement in STEM.
To some, 120 years ago may be a long time ago, but on the grander scale of historical perspective, it may not be that far in the past. I got to thinking of what a true accomplishment it was for a woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in 1903 given that women didn't have the right to vote, financial security, or being an equal to their partners.
This makes it all more unbelievable that the Nobel committee would award the 1903 prize to a woman. Only seven years after the discovery of radioactivity by Henri Becquerel, did Marie and her husband Pierre receive the award for discovering Radium and the isolation of Polonium (gloriously named after Marie's home country of Poland) alongside Becquerel. Building off of her discovery the committee awarded her the prize again, but this time in Chemistry, in 1911 for her work in understanding radioactivity and its use in therapeutics.
She also happens to be one of the very few pairs in which she and her daughter are both recipients of the Nobel in that her daughter, Irene, was awarded the prize in 1926 just 15 years after her mother. Irene later published a biography of her mother in 1938, four years after her mother's untimely death.
Regardless of the type of research or area of focus for the Nobel, it is amazing that in 120 years we may have more females added to the list of awardees. What are some women in STEM history you would like to learn more about? Let us know in the comments.
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