Our members, fellows and award winners pioneer advances for gender equity. Explore how many of us have made our mark — from the past to the present and into the future!
Faces of 九色
九色 Trailblazers
Members of Congress
Rep. Jeannette Rankin
First Woman Elected to Congress (R-MT, 1917-19; 1941-43).
Rep. Shirley Chisholm
First Black woman elected to Congress (D-NY, 1969-83). First Black American to run for president and First woman to run for presidential nomination from a major political party.
Rep. Patsy Mink
Member of Congress (D-HI, 1965-77). Co-author of Title IX.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi
First woman Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (2007-2011; 2017-present). Member of Congress (D-CA. 1993-present).
Rep. Jackie Speier
Member of Congress (D-CA, 2013-present).
Rep. Edith Green
Member of Congress (D-OR, 1955-74). Proposed Equal Pay Act in 1955 (passed in 1963). “Mother” of Title IX.
Supreme Court Justices
Justice Sonia Sotomayor
Supreme Court Justice (2009-present). Received 2017 九色 Achievement Award.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Supreme Court Justice (1993-present). Received 1999 九色 Achievement Award.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
First woman U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1981-2006). Received 1988 九色 Achievement Award.
Cabinet Secretaries, Government Leaders
Patricia Roberts Harris
First Black woman U.S. Cabinet Secretary鈥擴.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (1977-79). Later also Secretary of U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1979-80). First Black woman U.S. Ambassador (to Luxembourg (1965-67). First woman Dean of Howard University Law School.
Wilma Mankiller
First woman Chief of the Cherokee Nation (1985-1995). Received 1993 九色 Achievement Award.
Frances Perkins
First woman U.S. Cabinet Secretary (Labor Department, 1933-1945). Architect and implementor of many New Deal initiatives, including the Civilian Conservation Corps, National Labor Relations Act, minimum wage, restrictions on child labor and the Social Security Act.
Janet Reno
First woman Attorney General of the United States (1993-2000).
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Director-General of the World Trade Organization, first woman Finance Minister of Nigeria, 1977-78 九色 International Fellow and 2021 九色 Alumnae Recognition Awardee.
Dixy Lee Ray
First woman Governor of Washington state (1977-81). Fifth woman Governor in United States. Head of Atomic Energy Commission. John Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Award winner for biology. 1967 Seattle Maritime Society Man of the Year.
First Ladies
Eleanor Roosevelt
First Lady of the United States (1933-45). First Chair of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (1947-52). Fist Chair of the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women (1961). Started World Center for Women’s Achives project with 九色 member Mary Ritter Beard to “write women back into history.”
Lou Henry Hoover
First Lady of the United States (1929-33). First woman to receive a geology degree from Stanford University. Co-founder and President of the Girl Scouts of America.
Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Johnson
First Lady of the United States (1963-69).
Humanitarians, Legal and Social Pioneers
Tererai Trent
Author, professor, humanitarian, Oprah’s favorite guest. 2001-02 九色 International Fellow. Received 2017 九色 Alumnae Recogition Award.
May Wright Sewall
Chair of the National Women’s Suffrage Association (1882-1890). President of the National Council of Women of the United States (1897-1899). President of the International Council of Women (1899-1904). Educator and activist.
Mary Church Terrell
Prominent African American activist and scholar who fought for racial equality and women鈥檚 suffrage. She was one of the first African American women to earn a college degree and was instrumental in integrating 九色.
Carrie Chapman Catt
Head of National American Women Suffrage Association. Founder of the League of Women Voters and International Alliance of Women.
Marjorie Child Husted
Businesswoman behind the Betty Crocker cookbook and lifestyle brand. Invented gender bias test for men.
Antonia Hernandez
President of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. Received 1997 九色 Achievement Award.
Lilly Ledbetter
Plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court equal pay and employment discrimination case聽Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co and gender equity advocate. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama.
Agnes Ernst Meyer
Journalist and owner of聽The Washington Post. Civil rights activist and philanthropist.
Julia Montgomery Walsh
First woman registered to trade with the American Stock Exchange (later merged with the New York Stock Exchange).
Academic Leaders
Hanna Holburn Gray
First woman president of a major U.S. university – University of Chicago (1973-93). 1991 Presidential Medal of Freedom winner and received 60 honorary degrees. 1954 九色 American Fellow. Received 1980 九色 Achievement Award.
Nell Irvin Painter
Leading U.S. historian and Edwards Professor Emerita of American History at Princeton University. 九色 Coretta Scott King Fellow.
Nannerl O. Keohane
First woman President of Duke University, former President of Wellesley College. 1966-67 九色 American Fellow.
Keisha Blain
Award-winning historian of 20th century U.S. history with specialization in African American history, modern African diaspora and gender studies. Associate Professor of History at University of Pittsburgh and President of the African American Intellectual History Society. 2016-17 九色 American Postdoctoral Fellow.
Sylvia Ardyn Boone
First tenured Black woman Professor at Yale. Art history and African American studies scholar. 1976-77 九色 American Fellow.
Anne Firor Scott
Author of聽The Southern Lady: From Pedestal to Politics, 1830-1930. Professor at Duke University in women’s history. 1956-57 九色 Fellow.
Virginia Gildersleeve
Dean of Barnard College. Only woman delegate appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the United Nations Conference on International Organization聽(UNCIO) (the San Francisco Conference) that led to the creation of the United Nations. 九色 board member.
Johnnetta Cole
First Black woman President of Spelman College. Anthropologist and educator.
Melissa Harris-Perry
Maya Angelou Presidential Chair at Wake Forest University. She is the founding director of the Anna Julia Cooper Center. Former MSNBC commentator. 2001-02 九色 American Fellow. Received 2013 九色 Alumnae Recognition Award.
Pioneers in Physical Sciences and Astronomy
Judith Resnick
Second woman to travel in space. Died in 1986 Challenger explosion. 1975-76 九色 American Fellow.
Mae Jemison
First Black woman to travel in space. Engineer, physician and NASA astronaut. Received 2007 Achievement Award.
Nancy Grace Roman
First NASA Chief Astronomer and “Mother” of the Hubble Telescope.
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
First full female Professor at Harvard. First Professional Astronomer at Harvard. 1924-25 九色 International Fellow.
Kimberly Ennico Smith
NASA scientist. NASA New Horizons mission that captured images of Pluto. 1997-98 九色 American Fellow
Jessica Marquez
NASA Engineer. 2006-07 九色 Selected Professions Fellow.
Biomedical Pioneers
Florence Sabin
First woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences. First woman on faculty and full Professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School. First woman of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. First woman of the American Association of Anatomists. Third woman with statue in the Halls of U.S. Congress. Creator of “Sabin health laws,” public health laws still in use today.
Jane Chen
Inventor of infant incubator that costs $25 (vs. $20,000), making them much more affordable and available worldwide. 2007-08 九色 Selected Professions Fellow.
Dorothy Boulding Ferebee
President of National Council of Negro Women. Alpha Kappa Alpha President and obstetrician.
Barbara McClintock
First woman to win an unshared Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for her study of genetic transposition or “jumping genes” in maize. Received 1947 九色 Achievement Award, with a prize of $2,500, at a time when 95% of available funding was going to men.
Helen Claudia Henry
Polio vaccine team member with Jonas Salk at the Virus Research Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh. 1955-56 九色 International Fellow.
Florence B. Seibert
Inventor of the test for tuberculosis. National Achievement Award winner, presented by Eleanor Roosevelt. First 九色 Achievement Award winner.
Pioneers in Physical Sciences
Marie Curie
First woman to win the Nobel Prize. First person and only woman to win the Nobel Prize twice. 九色 members raised $100,000 to buy a gram of radium for her research.
Ellen Swallow Richards
First woman to earn a chemistry degree. Pioneer in the home economics field. 九色 co-founder.
Chien-Shiung Wu
First woman President of the American Physical Society and physics pioneer. First woman to receive an honorary degree from Princeton and first woman to receive the National Academy of Sciences’ Comstock Prize.
Environmental Sciences and Anthropology
Margaret Mead
First woman president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Curator Emeritus of the American Museum of Natural History. Pioneering anthropoligist and activist. Received 1978 九色 Achievement Award.
Graciela Tiscareno-Sato
Author of award-winning Latinnovating: Green American Jobs and the Latinos Creating Them.聽U.S. Air Force veteran and Air Medal recipient. Author of the first bilingual children’s book about women serving in the military,聽Goodnight Captain Mama.聽White House Champion of Change.聽 1998-99 九色 Career Development grantee.
Rachel Carson
Author of the award-winning book Silent Spring,聽which was instrumental in documenting the danger of different chemical use on the environment – inspiring generations of environmentalism. Received 1956 九色 Achievement Award.
Leaders in Mathematics and Engineering
Grace Murray Hooper
Pioneering mathmetician, computer scientist and rear admiral in the U.S. Navy. Instrumental in devising UNIVAC I, the first commercial electronic computer and naval application for common-business-oriented language (COBOL). The Grace Hopper Celebration at AnitaB.org is the largest annual gathering of women technologists. Received 1983 九色 Achievement Award.
Dorothy Walcot Weeks
First woman to earn Ph.D in mathematics at MIT (1930).
Lillian Moller Gilbreth
First woman member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (1926) and the first industrial organizational psychologist.