Finding Ada: Badass Women in Technology and Science!

Checking out Finding Ada for more background, but March 24, Ada Lovelace Day, celebrates women in technology and science--two fields where even today, there's a lack of recognition of women leaders, groundbreakers, earthshakers, and general rabblerousers. Ada Lovelace was a pioneer in the world of computing--back in the 1800s. Maybe not on a MacBook, but the woman knew what she was doing, and Ada Lovelace Day now pays tribute to women making an impact in the "nerdier" fields.

Although there are plenty of modern female role models in science and tech, I'd like to do a little throwback. I was a huge bookworm, even as a kid, and I read a ton of biographies. One of my favorites was a big, dusty hardback copy of a biography of Marie Curie. I loved her story, for starters because she was into some revolutionary political activism, and left her home country of Poland because of the political climate. She managed to study at amazing places like the Sorbonne, met a man named Pierre (hot name), and although he died tragically, she succeeded him as a professor of physics--no mean feat for a woman in the early 1900s.

Mme. Curie and her husband discovered polonium and radium, and were integral in researching and applying the therapeutic features of radioactive elements: treating cancer. Mme. Curie wasn't from a lot of money, and she worked hard for her success--no fancy laboratories or cushy existence, but hard work and passion for what has truly become a vital part of the resources for treating cancers (this is starting to sound like some of the language I use for writing thank-you letters at the hospital I work at....). Curie won not one, but two Nobel Prizes for her work--and although some write it off after it was awarded to Obama so quickly, a Nobel Prize is no mean feat, and two is pretty damn impressive.

She died of what was likely the side effects of radiation in a lab without safety precautions, something we know how to prevent today. (Crazy sidenote: the notes and other materials from her lab had to undergo more than two years of decontamination from radiation before they could be put on display for the public. I bet her insides actually glowed.) But her work lives on in the men and women who can now live longer as a result of radiation therapy stemming from her truly awesome work in a shed full of dangerous elements.

Women are still breaking new ground in the world of science, but we owe a lot to women like Curie who came before us--there's not a lot of "first woman to be educated at" statements in current biographies, because generations of women have already knocked down those barriers. The fact that her father enabled her to get a solid education in her early years had a lot to do with her success as well. I'm a firm believer in attacking problems of inequality from the ground up, and education is definitely the first step.

If' you're not familiar with the world of education/public policy, S(cience)T(echnology)E(ngineering)M(athematics) efforts are gaining traction in legislation and practice, ensuring that boys and girls alike have the best access to these vital fields--also important, because professionals in these fields typically make more money. If women are encouraged, alongside their male classmates, to pursue more generally "masculine"fields, they add crucial skills to their already growing arsenal, and can apply what they learn in STEM fields to anything from law to government to education as well as the sciences.

Want to do women a favor? Don't write science and technology off as a boy's world. Do science experiments with little girls if you babysit. Encourage friends to think outside the box or learn a new skill in the sciences if they want to expand their horizons. Don't assume a woman with a nice manicure can't build circuits or examine specimens in a lab. Women like Marie Curie, Gina Trapani, and girls like Jenn Walsh you may not have heard of yet: they're the past, present and future of life as we (may not) know it.