In 1960, during her first month at the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey took a bold stance against inadequate testing and corporate pressure when she refused to approve release of thalidomide in the United States. The drug had been used as a sleeping pill and was later proven to have caused thousands of birth deformities in Germany and Great Britain.
Internal medicine physician, social epidemiologist, and health services researcher who was among the first to document how doctor-patient relationships can help overcome racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare.
One of the nation’s leading researchers and practitioners in the field of health equity, having designed innovative approaches to improve physicians’ communication skills, patients’ self-management skills, and the ability of healthcare organizations to address the needs of populations experiencing health disparities.
Recipient of numerous awards, including the American Public Health Association Helen Rodríguez-Trías Social Justice Award.
Awarded the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship in 2007.
Author of the book Why Are Health Disparities Everyone’s Problem?.
Member of U.S. National Academy of Medicine.
Electrical engineer who is an expert in semiconductor devices and high-performance processors who pioneered new ways to connect computer chips using copper instead of aluminum, resulting in 20% faster chip speeds.
Geophysicist and planetary scientist who has produced several topography and gravity maps of planetary bodies that exceed the quality and resolution of those for Earth. She has led a dozen experiments on ten NASA missions and is the first woman to lead a NASA planetary mission.
Physicist and expert in quantum mechanics known for her discoveries and research in unconventional superconducting materials and high magnetic fields. She also is a leading advocate for diversity in science and a champion for women in scientific and engineering fields.
She became a Navy Nurse in September 1917, subseqently serving with Naval Base Hospital Number 3 in the U.S. and in Scotland during World War I, holding the grade of Chief Nurse for most of that period. Following the war, she was placed in charge of nursing activities at the U.S. Naval Hospital at San Diego, California.
Dr. Audrey Forbes Manley was the first African American woman to achieve the rank of Assistant Surgeon General (Rear Admiral).
Dr. Dorothy Lavinia Brown was the first African American woman surgeon in the South, the first single woman in Tennessee to be granted the right to become an adoptive parent and the first African American woman to serve in the Tennessee state legislature.
American medical administrator, educator and clinician
In 2002, when she was given the New York State Department of Health AIDS Institute Dr. Linda Lauberstein HIV Clinical Excellence Award, she was described as “an outstanding, compassionate HIV/AIDS practitioner… recognized among her colleagues as a consummate clinician and as a role model for setting standards of excellence in the provision of direct patient care.”