Initiated in 2015 through the generosity of a current parent, the Middlesex Speaker Series in Math and Science brought a second guest to campus on April 19, 2016. With the School about to celebrate the 40th reunion of its first coeducational class, it was an opportune moment for the presentation of Dr. Penny Noyce, whose talk concerned “Magnificent Minds: Pioneering Women in Science and Medicine.”
Dr. Noyce is an educator, writer, and medical doctor who has authored two books about noteworthy women scientists as well as several novels for younger science enthusiasts – all with the intent to encourage students to pursue their interests in STEM-related fields. Opening her talk with a short video in which young girls could readily come up with the names of famous inventors – but only male inventors – Dr. Noyce went on to discuss the lives and work of nearly two dozen women scientists, aiming to give the school community “a sense of the breadth and variety of their contributions.”
While the legacy of chemist and physicist Marie Curie was familiar to many, fewer knew about Émilie du Châtelet, a French mathematician and physicist who translated and interpreted Newton’s Principia Mathematica in the early 1700s; or Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace, an English mathematician whose algorithms in the 1840s have since led others to regard hero as the first computer programmer; or Barbara McClintock, whose fundamental research in the field of cytogenetics earned her the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1983.
Not only were these women intellectual powerhouses, Dr. Noyce said, but they also had to overcome significant barriers in order to further their education and follow their academic passions. “The beliefs about the nature of women,” she noted, “were the most fundamental barrier.” Aristotle, for example, viewed women as being “halfway between slaves and men” and therefore “meant to obey, not rule.” Centuries later, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Planck contended that while a rare female could study physics, the primary role for a woman was to be a wife and mother. Women were simply not considered capable of engaging in quantitative or scientific endeavors.
Attaining an education was another formidable barrier, as most women were taught at home and colleges for women were nonexistent until the late 19th century. Furthermore, the social roles for women were rigid and limited; though educated, Florence Nightingale was still expected by her family to be a gentlewoman, not a nurse. But times of war and upheaval could sometimes create opportunities for women like her, as evidenced by the notoriety she gained for her nursing management during the Crimean War.
In short, Dr. Noyce summarized, these exemplary women scientists should be well known for their intellects and contributions – and for their extraordinary determination. Though most were not appreciated in their own lifetimes, they should be recognized today for having paved the way for all modern women whose interests lie in the fields of science, medicine, and mathematics.