Women's History Month

In honor of Women's History Month, we went around our office asking members of our team to name some of their favorite women throughout history. Here's our list!

Grace Hopper - She invented the compiler and is directly responsible for nobody having to write programs that look like 1000101010010101010101.

Margaret Hamilton - One of the most bad*** programmers in the history of the world. Wrote the Apollo Guidance software that landed Armstrong et al on the moon. She literally had to WEAVE the code because that's how they stored it back then. Google that photo and the photo of her standing next to a print-out of the code (whoa!).

Katherine Johnson - She was literally a human computer and an accomplished physicist and mathematician. She calculated the orbital trajectories for NASA missions in the 1960s. John Glenn would not launch without confirmation that she had personally verified his orbit. Also an African-American in a segregated era, she is still with us at the age of 100!

Serena Williams — One of the greatest athletes of all time. She’s also a phenomenal businesswoman and mother. She works and trains like crazy, and because of that, every time she steps onto the tennis court she makes history. She’s a strong proponent of self-love and best of all, women raising each other up. All-around bad***, serving L’s one grand slam at a time!

Marie Curie - The first woman to win a Nobel prize. She even died prematurely because of her research. She was a great woman and was extremely brave, responsible for huge breakthroughs in science.

Lise Meitner - The first woman to become a full professor of physics in Germany. She was instrumental in the discovery of nuclear fission and was unjustly denied a Nobel Prize for that. Element 109, Meitnerium, is named after her.

Maria Klawe - President of Harvey Mudd College, a brilliant computer scientist in her own right, she has been a vigorous advocate for women pursuing CS degrees at Mudd, who now number about 50% of the graduating class.

Mary Shelley - She was a novelist of the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries (Frankenstein), made a name for herself in time when female writers faced steadfast discrimination.

Sirimavo Bandaranaike - The first female head of government in the world, she became Prime Minister of Sri Lanka in 1960. She showed that the glass ceiling preventing women from reaching the highest political offices could be shattered.

Angela Duckworth - MacArthur Genius Grant winner and author of Grit. Duckworth is a psychologist, CEO, and author, who focuses on character development and positive psychology.

And last but not least, our very own mothers!