Lost Women of Science

Born in 1850, Sarah Loguen found her calling as a child, when she helped her parents and Harriet Tubman bandage the leg of an injured person escaping slavery. When the Civil War ended and Reconstruction opened up opportunities for African Americans, Loguen became one of the first Black women to earn a medical license. But quickly, racist Jim Crow laws prevailed. At the urging of family friend Frederick Douglass, Loguen married and, with her new husband, set sail for the Dominican Republic where more was possible for a person of color. This is her story.This Best Of episode, which first aired in September 2023, is also available in a Spanish adaptation, narrated by Laura Gómez. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Nacida en 1850, Sarah Loguen encontró su vocación cuando era niña, cuando ayudó a sus padres y a Harriet Tubman a vendar la pierna de una persona herida que escapaba de la esclavitud. Cuando terminó la Guerra Civil y la Reconstrucción abrió oportunidades para los afroamericanos, Loguen se convirtió en una de las primeras mujeres negras en obtener una licencia médica. Pero rápidamente, prevalecieron las leyes racistas de Jim Crow. A instancias de un amigo de la familia, Frederick Douglass, Loguen se casó y, con su nuevo esposo, se embarcó hacia la República Dominicana, donde era posible más para una persona de color. Esta es su historia. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Carolyn Beatrice Parker provenía de una familia de médicos y académicos y trabajó durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial como física en el Proyecto Dayton, una parte fundamental del Proyecto Manhattan encargada de producir polonio. El polonio es un metal radiactivo que se utilizó en la producción de las primeras armas nucleares. Después de la guerra, Parker continuó su investigación y sus estudios en el Instituto Tecnológico de Massachusetts, pero murió de leucemia a los 48 años antes de que pudiera defender su tesis doctoral. Décadas más tarde, durante el apogeo de las protestas de Black Lives Matter, los ciudadanos de su ciudad natal de Gainesville, Florida, votaron para cambiar el nombre de una escuela primaria en su honor. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Carolyn Beatrice Parker came from a family of doctors and academics and worked during World War II as a physicist on the Dayton Project, a critical part of the Manhattan Project tasked with producing polonium. Polonium is a radioactive metal that was used in the production of early nuclear weapons. After the war, Parker continued her research and her studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but she died of leukemia at age 48, before she was able to defend her PhD thesis. Decades later, during the height of the Black Lives Matter protests, citizens in her hometown of Gainesville, Florida voted to rename an elementary school in her honor. This Best Of episode, which first aired in November 2024, is also available in a Spanish adaptation, narrated by Laura Gómez. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Emma Unson Rotor se tomó un permiso de su trabajo como profesora de matemáticas en Filipinas para estudiar física en la Universidad Johns Hopkins en 1941. Sus planes se vieron interrumpidos cuando el Ejército Imperial Japonés invadió y ocupó Filipinas. Incapaz de acceder a la beca que le había brindado el gobierno filipino para asistir a Johns Hopkins, se unió a la División de Desarrollo de Artillería del Buró Nacional de Estándares. Fue allí donde realizó investigaciones pioneras sobre la espoleta de proximidad, considerada “la primera arma ‘inteligente’ del mundo”, en palabras del físico Frank Belknap Baldwin, quien también colaboró en el desarrollo de dicha tecnología. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Emma Unson Rotor took leave from her job as a math teacher in the Philippines to study physics at Johns Hopkins University in 1941. Her plans were disrupted when the Imperial Japanese Army invaded and occupied the Philippines. Unable to access her Philippine government scholarship to attend Johns Hopkins, she joined the Ordnance Development Division at the National Bureau of Standards. It was here that she did groundbreaking research on the proximity fuze, the “world’s first ‘smart’ weapon,” in the words of physicist Frank Belknap Baldwin, who also helped develop the technology.This Best Of episode, which first aired in December 2923, is also available in a Spanish adaptation, narrated by Laura Gómez. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The year is 1897 and Annie Maunder, an amateur astronomer, is boarding a steamship bound for India from England. Her goal: to photograph a total solar eclipse. Maunder was fascinated by the secrets of the sun and was determined to travel the globe and unlock them. She understood that the few minutes of darkness during a solar eclipse presented a special opportunity to explore the nature of the sun. Her observations led to our greater understanding of how the sun affects the earth, but like so many early female scientists, her contributions and achievements have been forgotten.This Best Of episode, which first aired in April 2024, is also available in a Spanish adaptation, narrated by Laura Gómez. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Corre el año 1897 y Annie Maunder, una astrónoma aficionada, aborda un barco de vapor con destino a la India desde Inglaterra. Su objetivo: fotografiar un eclipse total de sol. Maunder estaba fascinado por los secretos del sol y estaba decidido a viajar por el mundo y descubrirlos. Comprendió que los pocos minutos de oscuridad durante un eclipse solar presentaban una oportunidad especial para explorar la naturaleza del sol. Sus observaciones condujeron a una mayor comprensión de cómo el sol afecta a la Tierra, pero al igual que muchas de las primeras científicas, sus contribuciones y logros han sido olvidados. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Esto es Lost Women of Science - Mujeres Olvidadas de la Ciencia. Laura Gómez, conocida por su papel de Blanca Flores en la exitosa serie de Netflix “Orange Is the New Black”, es el narradora del podcast Lost Women of Science en el que contamos las historias de destacadas científicas cuyo trabajo cambió nuestro mundo, pero cuyos nombres fueron prácticamente olvidados y casi borrados de la historia.La semana que viene estrenamos una nueva temporada en español, en la que contaremos la historia de una mujer victoriana que viajó por todo el mundo para perseguir eclipses, de una científica forense que descifró misterios para la policía,de la descubridora de uno de los medicamentos que más vidas ha salvado en este planeta... ¡entre otras! Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

After the success of our bilingual season about the first female doctor trained in the Dominican Republic, The Extraordinary Life and Tragic Death of Evangelina Rodríguez Perozo, we are adapting more of our episodes in Spanish. Starting next week, listen out for the stories of astronomer Annie Maunder, physicists Emma Unson Rotor and Carolyn Parker, and chemist and forensic scientist Mary Louisa Willard in Spanish and English. As we always say, for every Marie Curie or Rosalind Franklin whose story has been told, hundreds of female scientists remain unknown to the public at large. So, we illuminate the lives and work of a diverse array of groundbreaking scientists who, because of time, place and gender, have gone largely unrecognized. And now these stories are available in Spanish too. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices