Women Innovators

“To Be It, We Must See It”
Ginni Rometty, former CEO IBM

Women have changed our world through their innovative thinking, persistence and creativity. It is time we finally recognize their achievement, give them credit, and inspire the next generation. Delight in discovering who was behind GPS, Wifi, laser cataract surgery, duct tape, reclining shampoo chairs, windshield wipers, stem cell isolation, modern day retail franchising, Ozempic, and thousands of other world-shaping changes.

Search for Women Innovators

Do you know …

• The name of the determined Black female mathematician whose precise mapping of the world enabled GPS (Global Positioning System)?
• What brilliant, beautiful actress during World War II developed a frequency hopping communication system to allow torpedoes to their target that led to WIFI and Bluetooth?
• What silent screen actress refused to patent her inventions of directional and brake signals because it would help mankind? (A man subsequently patented her inventions!)

Margaret A. Wilcox

Margaret Wilcox patented her invention for a railway car heater in 1893. Her genius innovation redirected the heat generated from the train’s internal combustion engine to the interior of the passenger cars, which could become unbearably frigid on cold winter days. It also kept the windows free of frost and mist. Alas, the system had no controls and led to overheating in the cars, and thus was abandoned by the railway system because of safety concerns. But along came the automobile and, in 1917, engineers followed Wilcox’s design to heat the interior of the cars. The design was perfected when Ford began using her hot engine air model in 1929. Thus her invention became the predecessor for our modern automobile climate control systems.  

Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin

Born in 1777, Barbe-Nicole Clicquot is known as the “Grande Dame of Champagne.” Widowed from her husband Francois Clicquot at the age of 27, her legacy includes inventions that completely revolutionized the making of champagne, including vintage, the riddling table, and blended rosé champagne. Under her skill and ownership – a rarity for women of the early 19th century — she developed a technique for eliminating the opaqueness, or cloudiness, of champagne. The brand and company of Veuve (widow in French) Clicquot still bears her name.

Ada Lovelace

The World’s First Computer Programmer  Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer known for her work on Charles Babbage’s proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical …

Dr. Wanda Díaz-Merced

As we celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month, our innovative attention turns to a Puerto-Rican born female astronomer who can’t see the stars, but can listen to them. Blind since her early twenties, Wanda Díaz-Merced studies the light emitted by gamma-ray bursts, the most energetic events in the universe. When she lost her sight and was left without a way to do her science, realized that the light curves she could no longer see could be translated into sound. Through sonification, she regained mastery over her work, and now she’s advocating for a more inclusive scientific community.

Search above for more fabulous women innovators, by their name or their field. We have over 1500 names and are expanding the list daily with your help. After they have been publicized in the Zebra column, their names will appear on this site. Be sure to share your tips about other women innovators who belong on this list.

We are always on the lookout for other women to be added to our database. Share your suggestions with us and help us create a world in which women innovators receive mainstream recognition encouraging girls to equally participate in studying and solving global needs.