Hidden Figures: The Untold True Story of Four African-American Women Who Helped Launch Our Nation Into Space by Margot Lee Shetterly

Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in the South’s segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had a shot at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam’s call.

 

Just A Girl is the sensitive, personal story of the author’s ambition to become and succeed as a scientist during the “white man in power” era of the 1950s to 2010s. In the male-dominated science world, she struggles from girlhood unworthiness to sexist battles in jobs on the farms and in the restaurants of America, in academia’s laboratories and field research communities, and in the executive corner office. Jackson overcomes pain, shame, and self-blame, learns to believe in herself when others don’t, and becomes a champion for others.

 

 

 

 

 

Madame Wu Chien-Shiung: The First Lady of Physics Research by Caijian Jiang

Narrating the well-lived life of the “Chinese Madame Curie”—a recipient of the first Wolf Prize in Physics (1978), the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate from Princeton University, as well as the first female president of the American Physics Society — this book provides a comprehensive and honest account of the life of Dr Chien-Shiung Wu, an outstanding and leading experimental physicist of the 20th century.

 

 

 

10 Women Who Changed Science and the World by Catherine Whitlock

It has been more than a century since the Nobel Prize in science was first awarded to a woman. And after Marie Curie’s 1911 accolade, seventeen other women have been so honored. This book explores the lives of Curie, three other female Nobel Prize winners, and six other women who broke through gender discrimination in a variety of fields to help shape our world with their extraordinary discoveries and inventions. What drove these remarkable women to cure previously incurable diseases, disprove existing theories, or identify new sources of energy? Despite living during periods when the contribution of women was often disregarded, if not ignored, these resilient women persevered with their research. By daring to ask “How?” and “Why?” and laboring against the odds, each of these women, in her own way, made the world a better place.

 

Marie Curie and Her Daughters : The Private Lives of Science's First Family by Shelley Emling

Marie Curie was the first person to be honored by two Nobel Prizes and she pioneered the use of radiation therapy for cancer patients. But she was also a mother, widowed young, who raised two extraordinary daughters alone: Irene, a Nobel Prize winning chemist in her own right, who played an important role in the development of the atomic bomb, and Eve, a highly regarded humanitarian and journalist, who fought alongside the French Resistance during WWII. As a woman fighting to succeed in a male dominated profession and a Polish immigrant caught in a xenophobic society, she had to find ways to support her research. 

 

The Only Woman in the Room:  Why Science is Still a Boys' Club by Eileen Pollack

Pollack, who had once dreamed of a career as a theoretical astrophysicist and was one of Yale's first women to earn a Bachelor of Science degreen in physics, revisits her reasons for walking away from this career path. She interviews former teachers and classmates and dozens of other women who had dropped out before completing their degrees in science. In addition, she talks to experts in the field of gender studies and reviews the most up-to-date research that seeks to document why women and minorities underperform in STEM fields. 

 

 

Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science—And the World by Rachel Swaby

Covering Nobel Prize winners and major innovators, as well as lesser-known but hugely significant scientists who influence our every day, Rachel Swaby’s vibrant profiles span centuries of courageous thinkers and illustrate how each one’s ideas developed, from their first moment of scientific engagement through the research and discovery for which they’re best known. This fascinating tour reveals 52 women at their best—while encouraging and inspiring a new generation of girls to put on their lab coats.

 

 

How the Universe Got its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space by Janna Levin

Is the universe infinite, or is it just really big? Does nature abhor infinity? In startling and beautiful prose, Janna Levin's diary of unsent letters to her mother describes what we know about the shape and extent of the universe, about its beginning and its end. She grants the uninitiated access to the astounding findings of contemporary theoretical physics and makes tangible the contours of space and time--those very real curves along which apples fall and planets orbit.

 

 

The Madame Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science by Julie Des Jardins

Why are the fields of science and technology still considered to be predominantly male professions? The Madame Curie Complex moves beyond the most common explanations—limited access to professional training, lack of resources, exclusion from social networks of men—to give historical context and unexpected revelations about women's contributions to the sciences. Exploring the lives of Jane Goodall, Rosalind Franklin, Rosalyn Yalow, Barbara McClintock, Rachel Carson, and the women of the Manhattan Project, Julie Des Jardins considers their personal and professional stories in relation to their male counterparts to demonstrate how the gendered culture of science molds the methods, structure, and experience of the work. 

Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars by Nathalia Holt

In the 1940s and 50s, when the newly minted Jet Propulsion Laboratory needed quick-thinking mathematicians to calculate velocities and plot trajectories, they didn't turn to male graduates. Rather, they recruited an elite group of young women who, with only pencil, paper, and mathematical prowess, transformed rocket design, helped bring about the first American satellites, and made the exploration of the solar system possible.

 

 

Spineless by Juli Berwald

A former ocean biologist describes how she rediscovered her passion for marine science and the sea's imperiled ecosystems while investigating the enigmatic jellyfish and what the species' unique physiologies can teach us about engineering and environmental stability.

 

 

 

 

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Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.