This crossword features four distinguished women who were pioneers in their fields and for women in science around the world: Grace Hopper, Mae Jemison, Marie Curie, and Lise Meitner.
Grace Hopper (1906-1992) was an American mathematician, computer scientist, and naval officer among the very first programmers in the country. She authored the first computer manual and worked on Mark I, the first large-scale automatic calculator. Hopper also coined the term “bug” after a dead moth became stuck in a relay of Mark I, causing an error.
Mae Jemison (1956-) became the first African American woman to travel in space in 1992. She has worked as a physician, served in the Peace Corps, started a company that promotes science and social change, been an advocate for minorities in science, and has even starred on Star Trek. She is currently leading the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to achieve human space travel to another star within the next 100 years.
Lise Meitner (1878-1968) was an Austrian-Swedish physicist who helped uncover the massive potential of nuclear fission. To escape persecution as a Jew in Nazi Germany, she fled to Sweden in 1938, where she worked with her nephew and coined the term fission. Her research partner, Otto Hahn, received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the discovery of nuclear fission, but Meitner was not recognized.
Marie Curie (1967-1934) was a Polish-French physicist. She was the first woman to earn a Nobel Prize, and the only woman to earn a Nobel Prize in two different fields — first for a study on spontaneous radiation, and the second for her work on radioactivity.
