Celebrating Female Inventors for International Women’s day

By Renee Bakis

When you think of the word “inventor”, what springs to mind? Most of us can name a few famous inventors such as the likes of Thomas Edison or Nikola Tesla, but not a lot of us can name many famous female inventors. Historically, the word has predominantly been associated with male STEM professionals, but for this week’s blog, we have decided to shine a spotlight on some of the less known but equally important women who have also made some of the most well-known patents that we use in our everyday lives.

Over the last few centuries, there has been an increasing number of women getting involved in STEM fields of study, which has led to a marked rise in the number of Female inventors who have gained fame through their groundbreaking work alongside their Male competitors. During the 18th century we first started to see opportunities for women to join modern higher education, but it wasn’t until the 19th and early 20th century that we started to see more clear career progressions for women as science was still considered a “male dominated field”. It often took the acceptance and encouragement of a male figure for women to be validated in their field during that time, and it wasn’t until Marie Curie’s won her the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1911 that women started to establish themselves independently in their respective fields. She is considered one of history's most well-known female scientists, but she paved the way for many other women to gain recognition and acknowledgment for their achievements, not just in science but across all the STEM disciplines.

We decided to focus on those who are considered inventors because we think it's important to encourage the next generation to be bold and to dream big. Many women throughout history have fought to be heard and seen by society as equals when it comes to new innovative ideas, and in our modern-day society, during a time when there are more opportunities available then ever before, we want to encourage women to take the opportunity to make a statement of their own. We hope that this week’s resources inspire you to get creative with your work, because we never know who could make the next big thing.

NOTABLE FEMALE INVENTORS

We have compiled a list of a few of the amazing women who are responsible for some of the most well-known inventions in the world.

Jeanne Villepreux-Power (1794 - 1871)

Although the name might not ring a bell, French naturalist Jeanne Villepreux-Power was famous in her day for an invention that allowed people to study marine life more easily: the aquarium! She created the first glass aquarium in order to study sea creatures more up closely as well as “two additional variants: a glass apparatus within a cage for studying shallow water creatures, and a cage-like aquarium that could be raised and lowered to different depths''. In acknowledgment of her groundbreaking work, Jeanne became the first female member of the Catania Accademia, along with over a dozen other scientific academies throughout her life.

Grace Hopper (1906 - 1992)

Grace Hopper was a programming pioneer who had a long career in the Navy (during which she achieved the rank of Rear Admiral by special Presidential appointment and was nicknamed "Amazing Grace"). As a Mathematician and US Navy reserve officer starting her computer science career, she realized that programming could be more accessible to different people if there was a way to code in their own language, so she invented a new way of programming. In 1952 she invented the first complier, “essentially teaching computers to talk”. She is also credited for having co-invented COBOL computer language, “the first universal programming language used in business and government.”

Hedy Lamarr (1914 - 2000)

You may know her as one of the most glamorous actresses from the black and white film era, but did you know she is also a famous inventor? Austrian-American actress Hedy Lamarr was also a gifted mathematician and engineer, and during World War II, she joined the war effort by co-developing the idea of “frequency hopping” to improve existing torpedo technology. Despite obtaining the invention being patented in 1942, it wasn’t put into use until 20 years later by the US Navy. Since then, her spread-spectrum technology has become the foundation for GPS, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi technology we have today for which “she was inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of Fame in 2014”.

Stephanie Kwolek (1923 - 2014)

You may not know her name off the top of your head but you will have heard of her invention. Polish Chemist Stephanie Kwolek had a successful 40 year career in chemistry research, and during an experiment in 1967, she created a fiber 5 times stronger than steel, we know it as Kevlar. Stephanie made the discovery when an “experiment with turning a solid polymer into a liquid didn't work as planned”, her peers considered the experiment to have been a failure, but it turns out that the incidental discovery has become one of the most versatile materials and is used in everything from spacecraft parts to bulletproof body armour. In fact, since Kevlar vests were introduced in the 1970s is has saved countless officers, soldiers and civilians in combat zones all over the world.

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