This is atimeline of women in science in the United States.

• 1848:Maria Mitchell became the first woman elected to theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences; she had discovered a new comet the year before.^[1]
• 1853:Jane Colden was the only female biologist mentioned byCarl Linnaeus in his masterworkSpecies Plantarum.^[2]
• 1889:Mary Emilie Holmes became the first female Fellow of theGeological Society of America.^[3]
• 1889:Susan La Flesche Picotte became the first Native American woman to become a physician in the United States.^[4][5]
• 1893:Florence Bascom became the second woman to earn her Ph.D. in geology in the United States, and the first woman to receive a Ph.D. fromJohns Hopkins University.^[6][7] Geologists consider her to be the "first woman geologist in this country [America]."^[8]
• 1896:Florence Bascom became the first woman to work for theUnited States Geological Survey.^[9][10]

• 1901:Florence Bascom became the first female geologist to present a paper before the Geological Survey of Washington.^[11]
• 1903:Marie Curie became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize, awarded in Physics, and went on to also win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. She performed pioneering research inradioactivity, and discovered two elements (polonium andradium).^[12]
• 1912:Henrietta Swan Leavitt studied the bright-dim cycle periods of Cepheid stars, then found a way to calculate the distance from such stars to Earth.^[13]
• 1924:Florence Bascom became the first woman elected to the Council of theGeological Society of America.^[11]
• 1925:Florence Sabin became the first woman elected to theNational Academy of Sciences.^[14]
• 1928:Alice Evans became the first woman elected president of theSociety of American Bacteriologists.^[15]
• 1936:Edith Patch became the first female president of theEntomological Society of America.^[16]

• 1942: American geologistMarguerite Williams became the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in geology in the United States. She completed her doctorate, entitledA History of Erosion in theAnacostia Drainage Basin, atCatholic University.^[17][18]
• 1947:Gerty Cori became the first woman to receive theNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which she received along withCarl Ferdinand Cori "for their discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion ofglycogen", andBernardo Alberto Houssay "for his discovery of the part played by thehormone of theanterior pituitary lobe in the metabolism ofsugar".^[19][20][21]
• 1947:Marie Maynard Daly became the first Black woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry, and went on to perform research that would define how cholesterol clogged arteries, paving the way for a broad understanding that diet affects heart health.^[22]
• 1949:Dorothy Vaughan becomes the first African-American woman to supervise a group of staff at theLangely Research Center, aNASA field center.^[23]

• 1950:Isabella Abbott became the first Native Hawaiian woman to receive a PhD in any science; hers was in botany.^[24][25]
• 1950:Esther Lederberg was the first to isolate lambda bacteriophage, a DNA virus, fromEscherichia coli K-12.^[26]
• 1952:Grace Hopper completed what is considered to be the first compiler, a program that allows a computer user to use English-like words instead of numbers. It was known as the A-0 compiler.^[27]
• 1956: TheWu experiment was anuclear physics experiment conducted in 1956 by the physicistChien-Shiung Wu, born in China but having become an American citizen in 1954, in collaboration with the Low Temperature Group of the USNational Bureau of Standards.^{[28][29][30][31]} That experiment showed that parity could be violated in weak interaction.^[32]

• 1960:Rosalyn Yalow received theNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for the development ofradioimmunoassays ofpeptide hormones" along withRoger Guillemin andAndrew V. Schally who received it "for their discoveries concerning thepeptide hormone production of thebrain".^[33]
• 1962:Katherine Johnson performed the calculations for the NASA orbital mission, launchingJohn Glenn as the first person into orbit and returning them safely.^[34][35]
• 1963:Maria Goeppert Mayer became the first American woman to receive aNobel Prize in Physics; she shared the prize withJ. Hans D. Jensen "for their discoveries concerningnuclear shell structure” andEugene Paul Wigner "for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamentalsymmetry principles".^[36][37][38] She was born in Poland, but became a U.S. citizen in 1933.^[38][39]
• 1965:Sister Mary Kenneth Keller became the first American woman to earn a Ph.D. in Computer Science.^[40] Her thesis was titled "Inductive Inference on Computer Generated Patterns."^[41]

• 1975:Chien-Shiung Wu, born in China but having become an American citizen in 1954, became the first female president of theAmerican Physical Society.^[29][30][31]
• 1976:Margaret Burbidge, born in England, was named as the first female president of theAmerican Astronomical Society.^[42][43]
• 1977:Rosalyn Yalow received theNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for the development ofradioimmunoassays ofpeptide hormones"; she shared it with Roger Guillemin and Andrew V. Schally "for their discoveries concerning thepeptide hormone production of the brain."^[44]
• 1978:Anna Jane Harrison became the first female president of theAmerican Chemical Society.^[45]
• 1978:Mildred Cohn served as the first female president of theAmerican Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, then called the American Society of Biological Chemists.^[46][47][48]

• 1982: NephrologistLeah Lowenstein became the first woman dean of aco-educational medical school in the United States.^[49]
• 1983:Barbara McClintock received theNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery ofgenetic transposition; she was the first woman to receive that prize without sharing it, and the first American woman to receive any unshared Nobel Prize.^{[50][51][52][53][54]}
• 1984:Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to walk in space.^[55]
• 1988:Patricia Bath was the first African American woman to receive a medical patent, which was her invention of laser cataract treatment.^[56]
• 1988:Gertrude B. Elion received theNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along withJames W. Black andGeorge H. Hitchings "for their discoveries of important principles fordrug treatment".^[57]

• 1990:Antonia Novello became the first woman, first person of color, and first Hispanic to serve asSurgeon General of the United States.^[58]
• 1991:Doris Malkin Curtis became the first woman president of theGeological Society of America.^[59]
• 1992:Edith M. Flanigen became the first woman awarded thePerkin Medal (widely considered the highest honor in American industrial chemistry) for her outstanding achievements in applied chemistry.^[60][61] The medal especially recognized her syntheses of aluminophosphate and silicoaluminophosphate molecular sieves as new classes of materials.^[61]
• 1992:Mae Jemison becomes the first Black woman to travel into space when she served as amission specialist aboard theSpace Shuttle Endeavour.^[62]
• 1993:Ellen Ochoa became the first Hispanic woman to go to space when she served aboard theSpace Shuttle Discovery.^[63][5]
• 1998: NurseFannie Gaston-Johansson became the first African-American womantenured full professor at Johns Hopkins University.^[64]
• 1998:Rita R. Colwell became the first female director of theNational Science Foundation.^[65]

• 2004:Linda B. Buck received theNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along withRichard Axel "for their discoveries ofodorant receptors and the organization of theolfactory system".^[66]
• 2009:Carol W. Greider received theNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along withElizabeth H. Blackburn (Blackburn was a native of Australia, but lived in the United States since 1975, and became a naturalized citizen in September 2003^[67]) andJack W. Szostak "for the discovery of howchromosomes are protected bytelomeres and theenzymetelomerase".^[68]

• 2010:Marcia McNutt became the first female director of the United States Geological Survey.^[69]
• 2016:Marcia McNutt became the first woman president of the AmericanNational Academy of Sciences.^[70]
• 2018:Frances Arnold received theNobel Prize in Chemistry "for thedirected evolution of enzymes"; she shared it withGeorge Smith andGregory Winter, who received it "for the phage display of peptides and antibodies".^[71] This made Frances the first American woman to receive theNobel Prize in Chemistry.^[72]
• 2019:Karen Uhlenbeck won theAbel Prize for "her pioneering achievements in geometricpartial differential equations,gauge theory, andintegrable systems, and for the fundamental impact of her work onanalysis,geometry andmathematical physics."^[73] She is the first woman to win the prize.^[74]

• 2020:Kathryn D. Sullivan, the first American woman to walk in space, descended 35,810 feet to theChallenger Deep, making her the first person to both walk in space and to reach the deepest known point in the ocean.^[75]

• History of women in the United States
• Timelines of women in history
• United States history timelines
• Science timelines
• American women scientists

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• Use mdy dates from April 2025