Worldwide , only 28 percent of the investigator in scientific discipline , engineering science , engineering and math ( STEM ) are women . This numeral , provided byUN   research , is ridiculously humbled and actually quite worrying about the state of the worldly concern in 2016 . Great endowment is being lost because women are often discouraged to progress their career in science or to contemplate a STEM study at university .

The medium has emphatically bring a role in the portrayal of scientist as old white beau , so to help showcase more diversity , here ’s our leaning of sinful women scientist working today as we celebrateInternational Women ’s Day . The list is definitely not exhaustive , but we believe it is representative of the incredible pool of natural endowment institute in every scientific bailiwick .

Fabiola Gianotti

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Portrait of Fabiola Gianotti taken when she was a spokesperson for the ATLAS experimentation .   Claudia Marcelloni De Oliveira viaWikimedia Commons

Italian particle physicist   Dr. Gianotti was one of the driving power behind the breakthrough of the Higgs boson at CERN , which she announced in July 2012 . She is now film director - general of CERN , in charge of 2,513 faculty member and over 12,000 assort and bring down engineers from 608 university and research readiness worldwide .

Margaret Hamilton

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Margaret Hamilton , conduct Apollo flying software engineer , in the Apollo Command Module . NASA

Margaret Hamilton is the computer scientist   responsible for write the in - flight codification that allowed the Apollo missions to land on the Moon . She has put out over 130 document , proceedings , and reports on the six major programs and 60 projects she ’s been involved with during her vocation .

Ada Yonath

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Ada Yonath   at the   Weizmann Institute of Science , viaWikimedia Commons

Professor Yonath is responsible for the discovery of the atomic structure   of the   ribosome , for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009 . Ribosomes are complex molecular machines that synthesize proteins by colligate amino acids together ,   a fundamental part of cells .   Yonath also discover how 20 different antibiotic target microbial antibiotics .

Shirley Ann Jackson

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Shirley Ann Jackson talk at the World Economic Forum in 2010 . Qilai Shen viaWikimedia Commons

Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson is an American physicist and the first African - American woman to earn a doctor’s degree at MIT . During   her illustrious career , she served as the Chairperson of the   U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and she is now the 18th president of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute . Her recompense ranked first among USA private university presidents in 2014 .

Samantha Cristoforetti

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Capt . Cristoforetti photograph leaving the ISS viaTwitter

Captain Cristoforettiis an Italian cosmonaut , Air Force pilot program , and locomotive engineer .   She go to the International Space Station ( ISS ) on behalf of the European Space Agency in 2014/2015 , and she holds the record for the longest individual blank flight by a fair sex and for the longest uninterrupted space flight of a European astronaut ( 199 Day , 16 minute , 42 minutes ) .

Jackie Y. Ying

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Professor   Ying photographed for theInstitute of Bioengineeringin Singapore .

Professor   Ying is the current executive director of the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore . She became one of the youngest MIT full professor when she obtain her professorship in 2001 at only 35 . Her research focused on the synthetic thinking of innovative nanostructures for biomaterial applications programme , and she has author over 330 articles .

Maryam Mirzakhani

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Maryam Mirzakhani , professor of mathematics atStanford University

Professor Mirzakhani is the first woman to win the Fields Medal , the highest honor a mathematician can receive . She was grant the Medal   for her outstanding contribution to understanding the kinetics and geometry of Riemann surfaces , a particular class of slew surfaces used in math and cathartic .

Elizabeth Blackburn

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Photograph of   Elizabeth Blackburn   receiving   the 2012 American Institute of Chemists ( AIC ) Gold Medal .   Chemical Heritage Foundation viaWikimedia Common

Professor Blackburn is the current chairman of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies , and she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009 for her sketch of the telomere , a structure at the closing of chromosome that protects the transmissible material .

Joanne Liu

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Dr. Joanne Liu of Médecins Sans Frontières pictured during a discourse at Chatham House , viaWikimedia Commons

Dr. Liu is a Canadian physician and the international president of Doctors Without Borders ( Médecins Sans Frontières ) . Her team was   the first to respond to the Ebola outbreak in Guinea . It is widely think that her timely response and the air pressure she put on mankind leaders and public health officials was a key gene in containing the virus .