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.
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.
Ada’s photographs and her sisters’ diaries, letters and journals make up the Armytage family archive, which preserves the significant moment in history.
Betsy Thung Sin Nio was an Indonesian-Dutch women’s rights activist, medical doctor, economist and politician.
Shyamala “Shya” Chitaley was an Indian-American paleobotanist.
Emirati Minister of State for Advanced Sciences, chair of the UAE Space Agency and the United Arab Emirates Council of Scientists, and Deputy Project Manager of the Emirates Mars Mission, Hope.
Inez Whipple Wilder was an American herpetologist and anatomist, affiliated with Smith College from 1902 until her death in 1929.
Adah Belle Samuels Thoms was an African-American nurse who co-founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses and served as president from 1916 to 1923.
Italian neurobiologist who won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of nerve growth factor (NGF).
Ann Katharine Mitchell was a British cryptanalyst and psychologist who worked on decrypting messages encoded in the Germans’ Enigma cypher at Bletchley Park during World War II.