Science Archives - Page 96 of 99

Tsai Ah-hsin

Tsai Ah-hsin was the first female physician in colonial Taiwan’s first female physician. She graduated from the Tokyo Women’s Medical College in 1921, then completed her residency at the Taihoku Hospital in Japanese Taiwan and founded her own hospital at Taichu in 1925. She created a seminar to train midwives in obstetrics, which was offered through her hospital. She had to end the seminar in 1938 as the Japanese, who had invaded northern China in 1937, came to her seminar and forced some of her students to work for them as nurses on the front lines.
The serial drama “Wave Washing Sands,” based on her life, won Best Serial Drama at the Golden Bell Awards (celebrating Taiwanese television) in 2005.

Alejandra Melfo

Alejandra Melfo is a Venezuelan physicist, known for her efforts studying and conserving glaciers, especially the Humboldt Corona, the last glacier in Venezuela.

Nancy Grace Roman

Astronomer Nancy Grace Roman was the first women executive at the US’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Ada E Yonath

Ada E Yonath is a biochemist and structural chemist, who earned her Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science in X-ray crystallographic studies on the structure of collagen.

Aglaonice

Aglaonice is considered the first female astronomer in ancient Greece, regarded for her knowledge of the moon and its cycles. Plutarch wrote that she was “thoroughly acquainted with the periods of the full moon when it is subject to eclipse, and, knowing beforehand the time when the moon was due to be overtaken by the earth’s shadow, imposed upon the women, and made them all believe that she was drawing down the moon.”

Thelma Rittenhouse Wood-Lorz

Thelma R. Wood was an American zoologist who worked as a genetics assistant at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (1924-30). Her experience there inspired her to pursue graduate work at Brown University, where she worked as a biology assistant (1930-39) while she earned her Masters in 1932 and doctorate in 1938. She was particularly interested in researchin the genetics and life history of members of the Cladocera genus (tiny crustaceans commonly called water fleas), especially the single-celled organism Daphnia longispina.

Dr Yin May

Yin May, the first Burmese obstetrician and gynecologist, founded and ran the country’s main maternity hospital during the Japanese occupation of Burma. She was the first person to perform the Caesarian section in Burma and is known for her research on amoebic vaginitis, also called May’s disease.
While pregnant and separated from her family, Yin May founded the country’s primary maternity hospital during the Japanese occupation (1942–1945), working long hours with staff who had no OB/GYN experience. Burma had lost its main maternity hospital, Lady Dufferin Maternity Hospital, on 25 December 1941 due to Japanese aerial bombing and then the Japanese army commandeered Rangoon General Hospital for their use only. She later co-founded wartime medical and nursing schools (1943–1945). After World Wai II, she ran Lady Dufferin Maternity Hospital from 1946 to 1959, and was head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the Faculty of Medicine of Rangoon University from 1947 to 1959. Under her leadership, Dufferin became a maternity hospital recognized by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1957.

Dr Yin Yin Nwe

Dr Yin Yin Nwe is a geologist who has held signficant positions with UNICEF since 1991, and was appointed UNICEF Representative to China on 1 December 2006, retiring in 2011.
Yin Yin Nwe served for 19 years at the Geology Department of Yangon University. Joining UNICEF as an Environment Project Officer in 1991, she served from 1992 to 1994, as UNICEF Programme Officer for Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Central Asian Republics and Albania. She then became a regional advisor for western and central Africa in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire (1994-1999). In 1999, she was appointed UNICEF Regional Planning Officer for the Middle East and North Africa and in June 2005 was appointed UNICEF Chief of Tsunami Support, working to help victims in Indonesia.
In August 2012, President Thein Sein appointed Dr. Yin Yin Nwe as part of an Inquiry Commission to look into communal violence in Rakhine State. The commission completed its work and submitted a report the following year.
In June 2014, Presidnet Thein Sein appointed Dr. Yin Yin Nwe Chief Education Advisor. She had also previously served as an advisor to the Myanmar Peace Center (MPC), and was a member of the National Economic and Social Advisory Council and a member of the Education Promotion Implementation Committee (EPIC), advocating for education reform.

Angélique de Coudray

In 1759, French king Louis XV launched a project to reduce infant mortality in the country and commissioned Parisian midwife Angélique du Coudray to train peasant women as midwifes. From 1760 to 1783, she trained approximately 10,000 women across France, visiting poor women in rural areas and sharing her extensive knowledge with them. Presumably the women she taught also passed those skills on to outhers in following years. Du Coudray also invented the first lifesize obstetrical mannequin, so the women could practice mock births, and published a popular midwifery textbook, Abrégé de l’art des accouchements (The Art of Obstetrics, 1759). Due to the lack of accurate data collection, it is impossible to quote statistics about infant mortality rates (which were frequently underreported in the 1700s and earlier), but it seems inarguable that du Coudray must have directly and indirectly saved countless lives, of both mothers and children.

Dr Dian Fossey

Dr Dian Fossey was one of the world’s leading experts on primatology (the study of primates) and spent 18 years in African mountain forests studying gorillas. Fossey conducted the majority of her zoological research in the Congo jungle and Rwandan forests. In addition to anti-poaching activism, she pioneered scientific discoveries about gorilla societal structure. Her best-selling book, Gorillas In The Mist, was later adapted into a film. Her 1985 murder remains unsolved. She also reportedly tortured her enemies, kidnapped their children, and killed their livestock, along with lesser retaliatory acts. She was also known to be racist to the local Rwandans.