Over time, women’s achievements have been unacknowledged, buried, and credited to men. However, we would not be as developed in science without the revolutionary discoveries made by women across the world.

When talking about female contributions to the science world, we often consider the infamous Marie Curie and her research of radioactivity. Nonetheless, there are thousands of other women who devoted their lives to scientific research who deserve our praise, some concealed by restrictive societal roles.

For example, Sally Ride made history by being the first American female astronaut, youngest American astronaut, and third woman overall to fly in space. After seeing an ad for NASA’s astronaut program in a newspaper, Sally went on to be selected as a mission specialist astronaut. There were over eight thousand applicants to the program and only thirty-five people were selected, six of them were women.

Sally completed a one-year training from January 1978 to August 1979, making her eligible to be on future space shuttle flight crews. During this time period, Sally worked on developing the shuttle’s robot arm, working in mission control as a capsule communicator. During her free time, Sally Ride enjoyed playing tennis, remarking that Billie Jean King was one of her role models growing up. To pursue her life-long passion to inspire young girls in STEM, Sally launched her own company, Sally Ride Science, creating good science programs that sparked girl’s imaginations. Although there are so many women out there that have diligently worked to change the world, I hope that we, as a society, are able to accurately recognize their achievements and contributions. To do so, we must educate ourselves and others about how thousands of womens worked hard, enabling them to greatly improve the world.