In our new Substack series featuring women in STEM, we’ll tell one story at a time, about women whose discoveries changed medicine and science, and what it cost them to be heard:

“Each week, we’re going to tell a story about a woman who asked a question the world needed answered, about a woman who made a discovery that changed medicine or biology or physics or technology, and did so while navigating constraints that should never have existed. Some of these women will be famous. Many should be far more famous than they are. Some will be contemporary women whose work is unfolding right now, supported by programs that exist precisely because parity is still not here.

This is not only women’s history. It is human history. Science shapes the world we live in, from the vaccines we take to the technologies that govern our lives. Who gets to do science shapes what questions get asked, which problems are treated as urgent, and whose well-being counts.”