Ada Lovelace Day
Posted by Eva Amsen, on 6 October 2011
October 7 is Ada Lovelace Day, celebrating women in science and technology. This international day to promote gender equality in these fields was first held in 2009, and is named after Ada Lovelace. Ada Lovelace is considered to be the world’s first computer programmer – although in the 19th century, they weren’t called “computers” yet! Ada wrote algorithms for Charles Babbage’s “Analytical Engine“.
A few related resources to mark the day:
-The Journal of Cell Science‘s “Women in Cell Science” interview series by Fiona Watt.
-“Mothers in Science: 64 ways to have it all“, a free eBook published by the Royal Society and produced by Ottoline Leyser (who has a bit more to say on the topic in an upcoming interview with Development, so watch this space in a few weeks.)
Who inspired you?
In many areas of science, women are underrepresented at all levels. In other fields, such as chemistry or molecular biology, the distribution is still quite even among students, and then drops dramatically among more senior scientists. Developmental biology, on the other hand, seems to suffer less from a lack of women than many other areas of science. In 2010, more than half of the presidents of national developmental biology societies were women! In addition, quite a few women have made significant seminal contributions to developmental biology over the years and are role models to many: Nicole Le Douarin, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, or Anne McLaren (see also here), to name just a few of them – but there are many others!
The organisers of Ada Lovelace Day are asking people to “share your story about a woman — whether an engineer, a scientist, a technologist or mathematician — who has inspired you to become who you are today.” So who is your female role model?
(2 votes)
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I would like to add Mina Bissell – the pioneer in proving the importance of the ‘microenvironment’ in cell growth and cancer.
(while everyone was looking at genes and proteins, she was looking outside the cell..)