“Well-behaved women seldom make history.”* At a time (2025) when American women’s hard-fought contributions in science, technology, and mathematics are being systematically erased… Introducing Dr. Deborah Swackhamer (1954-2021), an American chemist, environmental scientist, staunch advocate for integrity in science — and 2018 recipient of an MIT Disobedience Award . Dr. Swackhamer earned her PhD in Oceanography and Limnology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1985. Her main area of study was the transport of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) in lakes. According to the University of Illinois, PCBs are a group of manmade chemicals, widely used pre-1977 in the United States in hydraulic fluids, lubricants, and plasticizers. The primary company that made PCBs in this country was Monsanto. In 1979, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned the use of PCBs because of health effects caused by exposure, which include cancer, infertility, and neurological disorders. As...
Who doesn’t rely on GPS these days? Three little letters that represent a very complex series of mathematical calculations. The foundation for today’s Global Positioning System was created by a pioneering Black mathematician, Dr. Gladys West. We are sharing the story of Dr. West not just because she’s a badass U.S. Woman in STEM. Dr. West was inducted into the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Hall of Fame in 2018, because she did her pioneering GPS work while serving as a mathematician at the U.S. Naval Weapons Lab. She is one of only TWO women inducted into the SMPHF since it was founded in 1990. This, despite what we now know to be hundreds of women engineers, mathematicians and “computers” who powered much of NASA and NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) work from the 1930s to the 1070s. So, introducing Dr. Gladys West, mathematician and mother of GPS. Dr. Gladys B. West was born in Sutherland, Virginia, in 1930. After graduating at the t...