Directory 2

• Science has become both increasingly diverse and increasingly connected, with researchers collaborating globally and disciplines merging to create larger, more useful theories.

Fred Hoyle (1915–2001)

• British astrophysicist who worked on the origin of elements in stars.
• Proposed that most chemical elements were created by nuclear reactions within large stars.
• A proponent of the steady state theory, which states that the Universe's average density remains constant as it expands due to continuous creation of new matter.
• Coined the term "Big Bang" disparagingly during a radio talk about the rival theory.
• The steady state theory was largely discredited in the 1960s.
• Later in life, he was interested in the presence of organic molecules in comets, believing they brought life to Earth.

Katherine Johnson (1918–)

• Award-winning American mathematician who calculated trajectories for space missions.
• Began working at NACA (later NASA) in 1953, performing manual calculations for engineers.
• Helped plan the launch site and flight path for the Apollo 11 Moon mission in 1969.
• Worked on the US space shuttle program.
• She retired from NASA in 1986.

Irene Uchida (1917–2013)

• Canadian medical geneticist.
• Examined how genes and chromosomes affect health.
• Investigated chromosome differences in genetic conditions and congenital abnormalities, including congenital heart disease and Down syndrome.
• People with Down syndrome have an extra chromosome (47 instead of 46) in their cells.
• She also examined how X-rays affect chromosomes.

Yvonne Brill (1924–2013)

• Born near Winnipeg, Canada.
• Started working with the Douglas Aircraft company in 1945.
• She invented a propulsion system to keep unmanned spacecraft in stationary orbit.
• She worked on thrusters for weather satellites, rocket designs used in US Moon missions, and the Mars observer.
• While working for NASA from 1981 to 1983, she worked on a rocket engine for the space shuttle.

Abdus Salam (1926–1996)

• Born in Pakistan.
• Studied mathematics and physics at the University of Cambridge, UK.
• Proposed the electroweak theory, unifying the weak interaction and the electromagnetic force.
• Postulated messenger particles for the weak interaction.
• His theories were proven correct at CERN in 1973.
• Jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics with Sheldon Lee Glashow and Steven Weinberg in 1979.

Vera Rubin (1928–2016)

• Discovered that stars orbit at the same speed regardless of their distance from the center of a spiral galaxy.
• Newton’s laws of gravity could not explain this.
• It implied invisible matter affects the outer stars
• Demonstrated this in the Andromeda Galaxy in 1970.
• By 1985, she had examined 60 spiral galaxies and realized it was a general phenomenon.
• Her work was essential to convincing the world of the existence of dark matter.
• She received many prestigious awards, including the National Medal of Science in 1993.

Peter Higgs (1929–)

• Born in Newcastle, England.
• Studied physics at King’s College London.
• Best known for his theory explaining the origin of mass in elementary particles.
• Proposed that particles gain mass by interacting with the Higgs field.
• Predicted the existence of the Higgs boson.
• The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN discovered a particle with the predicted characteristics of the Higgs boson in 2012.
• Received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013 with François Englert.

Eric Kandel (1929–)

• Born in Vienna, Austria
• Fled to the US due to anti-Semitism.
• Studied the cellular basis of behavior and medicine at New York University.
• Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2000 for work on the role of synapses in memory and learning.
• Clarified the processes behind short- and long-term memory using sea slugs.
• Demonstrated that such processed are equally applicable in humans.

Mario J. Molina (1943–)

• Born in Mexico City, Mexico.
• Studied chemical engineering.
• Showed that CFCs destroy the ozone layer in 1974.
• This work led to banning or limiting the use of CFCs.
• Earned Molina and Sherwood Rowland a share of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Lap-Chee Tsui (1950–)

• Canadian medical geneticist born in Shanghai.
• Moved to Canada in 1977.
• Jointly found the fault in the gene responsible for cystic fibrosis.
• The identification of the faulty gene paved the way for new treatment options based on correcting the gene or replacing it.

Mae Carol Jemison (1956–)

• The first African American woman to travel in space.
• Went into orbit in the space shuttle Endeavour in 1992.
• Graduated from medical school in 1981.
• Served as a medical officer with the Peace Corps in West Africa.
• Became one of 15 candidates selected from over 2,000 applicants to train as an astronaut in 1987.
• Was the science mission specialist on the space shuttle and a coinvestigator of two bone cell research experiments.

Donna Strickland (1959–)

• Canadian optical physicist.
• Paved the way for the shortest and most intense laser pulses ever created.
• Developed chirped pulse amplification (CPA) in 1985 with Gérard Mourou.
• Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018 with Mourou.
• Became associate professor at the University of Waterloo in 1997.
• Leads the ultrafast laser research team.
• CPA has several uses, including in laser eye surgery and in some cancer therapies.

Carol Greider (1961–)

• American molecular biologist.
• Most of her research has been on telomeres and the enzyme telomerase.
• Telomeres are the segments of DNA that occur at the ends of chromosomes and play an important role in cell life span.
• Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009 with Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack W. Szostak.
• Found that inhibiting telomerase in cancer cells slows tumor growth, making it a potential anticancer drug development.