Introductions Necessary

Andrea Mueller has always loved racing, and now she’s a lead race engineer in NASCAR helping lead Team Penske to victory. Image: Wikimedia. Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ninehourfilms

Thanks to the work of Alice Evans, we can drink milk knowing that it’s been pasteurized to remove harmful bacteria. Image: Wikimedia. Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ninehourfilms

Today marks the thirtieth anniversary of the tragic explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger which killed its seven crew members including mission specialist Judith Resnik. Image: NASA

Lilli Hornig was a member of the Manhattan Project, and witnessed the first atomic bomb tests. Image: Wikimedia / Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Meet Esther Lederberg, a microbiologist who made many influential discoveries. Image: Wikimedia.

Meet the first woman to drive on Mars, NASA’s Ashley Stroupe. Image: NASA/JPL.

Astronomer Annie Jump Cannon found star classification systems didn’t fit her needs, so she created a new one that we still use today. Image: Wikimedia.

Meet Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to earn a medical degree. Image: Wikimedia

Roberta Bondar was both the first neurologist and the first Canadian woman in space. Image: Wikimedia.

In the 1970’s Tu Youyou used research into traditional Chinese medicine to discover and synthesize a revolutionary malaria treatment. Image Source: Wikimedia (Bengt Nyman, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Restrictions of her time kept Marie-Anne Lavoisier from becoming a chemist herself, but she was integral to her husband’s work and the two changed chemistry forever. Image: Wikimedia

in 2006, NASA launched the New Horizons probe towards Pluto. Thanks to Yanping Guo, it reached its destination exactly on time. Image Source: NASA

Meet Carolina Cruz-Neira, a computer engineer who is the co-inventor of the CAVE automatic virtual environment and a pioneer in virtual reality. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

American Anita Borg was a pioneering programmer and women’s advocate who co-founded the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Image Courtesy of the Anita Borg Institute.

In December 1966 Dian Fossey arrived in Africa to begin her long term study of the mountain gorilla. Learn more about her work in today’s episode. Image: Wikimedia.

Meet Katherine Johnson, a mathematician involved in many of America’s greatest achievements during the space race.

During awards season, many people in the U.S. have their eyes towards Hollywood. If you looked up the nominees and winners of the Golden Globes or the Oscars using a WiFi signal, then you have a different Hollywood star to thank: Hedy Lamarr.

Astronaut Susan Helms holds a record for the longest spacewalk at 8 hours and 56 minutes. Learn more about her NASA career in today’s episode.

A pioneer of the use of solar energy, Maria Telkes, is often referred to as the “Sun Queen” and the ‘Mother of the Solar Home.”

The late 18th century was not the best time to devote yourself to a life-long study of mathematics if you were the daughter of a merchant growing up in Paris, France. But that didn't stop Marie-Sophie Germain.