History of Women in Tech
The women who built the modern world.
Their names weren't always in the textbooks — but the technology you use every day exists because of them. Here are some of the trailblazers whose work shapes science and computing.
- 1843
Ada Lovelace
First computer programmer
Wrote the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine — Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine — over a century before modern computers existed.
- 1903
Marie Curie
Pioneer of radioactivity
The first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and the only person to win Nobels in two different sciences (Physics and Chemistry).
- 1944
Grace Hopper
Inventor of the compiler
Created the first compiler and co-developed COBOL, transforming computers from research curiosities into business tools.
- 1952
Rosalind Franklin
Discovered DNA structure
Her X-ray diffraction images of DNA were critical to the discovery of the double helix structure of life itself.
- 1962
Katherine Johnson
NASA mathematician
Her orbital calculations made John Glenn's first American orbit of Earth possible — he refused to fly until she'd verified the numbers.
- 1977
Hedy Lamarr
Inventor of frequency hopping
Co-invented the spread-spectrum technology that underlies modern Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS.
- 1985
Radia Perlman
Mother of the Internet
Invented the Spanning Tree Protocol — the foundation that made large networks like the Internet possible.
- 2014
Maryam Mirzakhani
Fields Medal winner
The first woman to win mathematics' highest honor, for her work on the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces.
"I was taught the way of progress is neither swift nor easy."
— Marie Curie