Q And R Are For...

Happy Sunday! I hope you all are having an amazing day of rest. I'm cheating a bit and posting today so that by Tuesday I'll be back on track with the A to Z.

Q is for Helen Quinn, particle physicist. She earned her doctorate in physics from Stanford University in 1967, when less than 2% of the world's physicists were women. Her post-doctoral work was completed at the DESY (the German Electron Synchrotron). Helen had the distinction of teaching and working at Harvard University for seven years until her return to Stanford, where she is currently a professor at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Her contributions to the field of particle physics include her work with Howard Georgi and Steven Weinberg. They showed how the three types of particle interactions (strong, electromagnetic and weak) become "similar in extreme high energy processes and so might be three aspects of a unified force." This sentence is straight from Wikipedia as I have a very nominal understanding of particle physics. With Enrico Poggio and again Steven Weinberg, Helen also discovered the quark-hadron duality property. 

Helen works with elementary and high school teachers to make physics fun and more accessible. She wants to encourage more people to understand and study her field. Dr. Quinn is a fellow and Past President of the American Physical Society and was the recipient of the Oscar Klein Medal from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2008. Along with Howard Georgi and Jogesh Pati, she received the Dirac Medal from the International Center for Theoretical Physics in 2000. The woman's brain is beyond brilliant and I hope there are oodles more like her.

R is for Edith Nourse Rogers, legislator and political leader. She served as a Red Cross volunteer during World War I and became the presidential representative in charge of assisting disabled veterans for the Harding, Coolidge and Hoover Administrations. In 1925, she was elected to serve out her late husband's term in Congress where she became the longest serving woman in the House of Representatives.

During her 17 terms in office, she wrote legislation to establish the GI Bill of Rights for returning veterans of World War II, allowing them to apply for low interest loans, go to college and obtain job training. Even more impressive to me was her introduction of legislation at the start World War II to establish the Women's Auxiliary Army Corp (WAAC). Thanks to Edith's vision, women serve in all branches of the military today. She also fought for a 48 hour work week for women and supported equal pay for equal work.

Thank you so much for stopping by, I truly ppreciate the visits and comments. For more awesome A to Z challengers, click here.

O And P Are For...

I'm still behind on everything and I am so so sorry to those of you that have visited me and I haven't made it to your blogs or commented back. I am still unpacking, working and taking care of some other deadlines that have since caught up with me. Five days off line and it's like gooey kablooie around here for me. That thud is my head hitting the desk. The white-coated ones are not far behind. "They're coming to take me away..." Anyway, enough crazy, pity party talk and on with the A to Z.

O is for Ellen Ochoa, the first Hispanic female astronaut and the current Deputy Director of the Johnson Space Center.  Ellen first went into space aboard the shuttle Discovery in April 1993. As a Mission Specialist, she used the Remote Manipulator System robotic arm to deploy, then retrieve the Spartan satellite which studied the solar corona. Ellen returned to space three more times, including two visits to the International Space Station. Her third mission, in 1999, was the first time a shuttle had docked with the station.

Ellen  is the co-inventor and holds three patents for an optical inspection system, an optical object recognition method and a method for noise removal in images. She is the recipient of the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the Outstanding Leadership Medal, the Exceptional Service Medal and Four Space Flight Medals. She has also been awarded the Harvard Foundation Science Award as well as the Albert Baez Award for Outstanding Technical Contribution to Humanity. She has two schools named for her as well. How cool is that? This woman rocks plain and simple.

P is for Alice Paul, a woman whose contributions to the women's suffrage movement are incalculable. At age 20, she graduated from Swarthmore college and went on to earn an M.A. and a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. She joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association shortly after graduation from the U of P. Alice was appointed the Chairwoman of their Congressional Committee in DC where she organized a successful parade to raise awareness of the cause and focused on getting a constitutional amendment  for women's suffrage. By 1913, NAWSA's member numbers were growing.

However, Alice was a firebrand and often clashed with the NAWSA leadership. She left in 1916 and formed the National Women's Party. In January 1917, the NWP formed the Silent Sentinels protest in front of the White House to call for an amendment on Women's Suffrage. Alice and others were arrested, then incarcerated. Locked up at Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia, Alice remained active. She staged a hunger strike to protest the horrid conditions there and the press got wind. Prison officials ordered Alice restrained and force fed her raw eggs through a feeding tube. The coverage of that savagery kept pressure on the Wilson Administration to get an amendment passed. Alice would be arrested twice more until the 19th Amendment was finally passed on August 18, 1920. Just a mere 92 years ago and how old is this country?

Fun Facts

Alice was the original author of a proposed Equal Rights Amendment in 1923, but an ERA would not see the light of day until the 1970's, where it failed.

The 2004 film Iron Jawed Angels is all about Alice, her fellow suffragists and the passage of the 19th Amendment.

Thanks for stopping by, I appreciate the visits and comments. For more awesome A to Z challengers, click here.

M And N Are For...

Happy Thursday! Still plugging along on the Big A to Z.  I am loving being back in the swing. What a great time this is as the home stretch looms near. Hope you are meeting and visiting some of the other awesome participants. You can find them by clicking here

M is for Wangari Maathai, an environmental and political activist from Kenya. In 2004, she became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Wangari was also the first East African woman to earn a PhD when she was awarded her doctorate from the University of Nairobi in 1971. Inspired by the environmentalists she saw here in the States, Wangari founded the Green Belt Movement in 1976. This is a community development organization that helps Kenyan women in poor rural areas plant trees to combat deforestation, restore their primary source of fuel, generate an income and stop soil erosion.

Maathai's activism led her to seek political office and she ran unsuccessfully for the Kenyan Parliament in 1997. However, she returned for another try in 2002 and was elected. The following January she was appointed Assistant Minister in the Ministry for Environment and Natural Resources, where she served until 2005. She used this time to found a political party to support environmentally minded candidates.

She continued to teach and to work for women's rights in Africa until her death of ovarian cancer in September of 2011.

N is for Sarojini Naidu, Indian independence activist, poet and child prodigy. In a country known for its disdain of girl children, Sarojini is a standout. She was the first woman governor of Uttar Pradesh state and only the second woman to ever be elected president of the Indian National Congress. Her political activism began after she joined the Indian National Movement and from 1915-1918, she traveled throughout India lecturing on social welfare, the empowerment of women and nationalism. She helped to found the Women's Indian Association and was chosen to go to London to speak to the Joint Select Committee to present the case for giving women the vote.

She counted Mahatma Ghandi amongst her friends and played a leading role in the Civil Disobedience Movement. She was arrested along with Ghandi on several occasions. 

Fluent in five language, Naidu was a child prodigy. She attended King's College London at sixteen and later studied at Cambridge. She fell in love with poetry and wrote about contemporary Indian life and culture, attracting a large Indian and English following. Some of her most well-known works include The Golden Threshold and The Bird of Time.

Fun Fact:

Sarojini was such good friends with Ghandi, she called him  "Mickey Mouse."

The Big Return: K Is For...

I'm baaaaccckkk!!! Finally, right? I bet you didn't even miss me. LOL Yep, I am all squared away in my new place, surrounded by boxes, can't find my deodorant or my hair dryer, but I'm online and back blogging. You know, the important things. I hated missing out on the A to Z but, I'm looking forward to catching up. So while all of you are on P, I am on K and doubling up with L so I have a prayer of running even.

K is for Mary Kingsley, a woman whose explorations and writings of Africa helped pave the way for a better understanding of the continent and its people. Mary had little formal education, her schooling was largely due to the fact that her father had a very large library and "allowed" her access to it. However, she did train as a nurse at Kaiserworth Medical Institute.

She arrived in Sierra Leone on August 17, 1893, then pressed on into what is now Angola, areas where non-native women were about as common as unicorns. She explored the Ogooue River and stayed with the remote Fang people in Cameroon. While there, Kingsley climbed Mt. Cameroon by a route previously unknown by European explorers.

Because of her experiences, she held views that were counter to established thought. She got into hot water with the Church of England when she dared to criticize the missionaries who attempted to convert the peoples of Africa by subverting their native cultures. Kingsley wrote two books chronicling her experiences that remain in print today, Travels in West Africa (1897) and West African Studies (1899).

L is for Rose Livingston, an activist, who was known in the early 20th century press as the Angel of Chinatown. She put her life at risk time and again to rescue women and girls from prostitution. Venturing into the slums of Chinatown in New York, Rose would confront the various pimps, cadets and procurers. leading the girls out of the brothels. Rose made many an enemy, including the mayor of New York at the time, William Gaynor. Livingston raged against policemen, councilmen and other officials about how they allowed women to be subjugated, oppressed and put into danger at the hands of brothel keepers and others. At one point, she was beaten severely and received a broken jaw at the hands of one of the pimps she opposed.

She finally took her crusade to the national stage and was instrumental in getting the Mann Act passed. The Mann Act is the 1910 law here in the States which prohibits interstate sex trafficking.

Rose was also very outspoken about getting women the right to vote. She believed that the vote was the only way that women could ever truly hope to be free and in charge of their own destinies.  A radical thinker for sure.

Fun Factoids

Mary Kingsley was also an avid amateur biologist. Her explorations on the Ogooue River resulted in the discovery of several unknown variety of fish, three of which were named for her.

Thanks for stopping by and welcoming me back into the wonderful fold of the A to Z. I missed being here very much. Your comments and visits mean a lot to me. And thank you so much, too for the kind and encouraging comments you left regarding my big move. They left me speechless with gratitude.

Click here to visit other members of this hugely amazing challenge.

K Is For Knock Off...For the Moment

I know I was supposed to have a strong woman post up today, but my friends, I have to knock-off the A to Z until Tuesday. I am moving on Saturday and it is crunch time which means that I can't visit blogs and reply to any comments like I want. This time would have been so much easier had I at least been able to schedule posts, but my Schedule Post has not been functioning since before the change to the new Blogger interface and Blogger has no helpful answers, so I must leave you for now.

Forgive my absence, I really will miss visiting every one's blogs and reading all of your amazing comments.  For those of you that left such wonderful comments yesterday, I will respond as soon as I can. I appreciate all of you very, very much. Your thoughts brighten my day and kept me going as things started to get crazed around here.

To Alex, Arlee, Damyanti, Jeremy, Jenny, Stephen, Tina, Matthew, Konstanz, Elizabeth, Karen, Shannon and DL, thank you for doing such a magnificent job hosting. You are the best!

I will be back next week with more awesome ladies, including my missing letters K,L, M, and N. I am determined to finish on time this year, even if it means blogging on Sundays. :)

J Is For Dr. Mae Jemison

This lady is a rock star to me. Dr. Mae Jemison, physician and astronaut, was the first African American woman in space when she served on the crew of the shuttle Endeavor back in 1992. I remember sitting around my dorm with a few of my friends and watching the launch. It was amazing.

Brilliant does not even begin to describe Mae. She graduated high school at sixteen and attended Stanford University on a scholarship. She received a B.S. in chemical engineering and also earned enough for an A.B. in African and Afro-American Studies. After graduating medical school from Cornell in 1981, Mae joined the Peace Corps and from 1983 to 1985, she was the area medical officer for the West African nations of Sierra Leone and Liberia. She once stayed awake with a patient for 56 hours straight as the poor patient suffered with meningitis and had to be flown to Germany for treatment.

In 1987, she joined NASA. She was in the first class of astronauts selected after the Challenger disaster.  Her five year stint culminated with her journey on board the Endeavor, where she served as Mission Specialist. Jemison later said of her experience, "The first thing I saw from space was Chicago, my hometown. I was working on the middeck where there aren't many windows, and as we passed over Chicago, the commander called me up to the flight deck. It was such a significant moment because since I was a little girl I had always assumed I would go into space." And guess what? She drew some of her inspiration from Lt. Uhura. Rock on Nichelle Nichols!

After NASA, Jemison has gone on to do even more extraordinary things.  In 1993 she founded The Jemison group, which researched, markets and develops technology for every day life. She also founded the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence named in honor of her mother. This organization runs The Earth We Share (TEWS) a four week residential science camp for kids which focuses on scientific answers for global problems. She is currently a professor at Dartmouth and in 2009 participated in First Lady Michelle Obama's forum for promising girls in Washington DC.

Fun Factoid

Mae is the  only real astronaut to make  a guest appearance on Star Trek. She played Lt. Palmer in the episode Second Chances of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I appreciate you stopping by today. Your visits and comments mean the world to me. If you want to visit the other wicked cool participants in the big A to Z, please click here.

I Is For Nilima Ibrahim

Today's post is about a writer and teacher from the tiny nation of Bangladesh, a country once part of Pakistan, but took its name after a brutal liberation war in 1971. Nilima Ibrahim was a teacher and writer, who specialized in Bengali literature.

Nilima was a career academic, an unusual occupation in an area where women all too often do not have a voice. She earned her bachelor's degree from Scottish Church College and her MA in Bengali literature from the University of Calcutta in 1943. She would later go to earn a doctorate from the University of Dhaka in 1959. This was at a time when there were not even a whole lot of Western women earning advanced degrees. She taught at various schools such as Khulna Coronation Girls School and Loreto House, until her appointment as lecturer at the University of Dhaka. In 1972 she became a full professor.

Nilima's writing career took off shortly after her doctoral degree in the late 1950's. She published various works on Bengali literature, essays on the origin and development of the literary traditions, as well as a short biography of Bengal poet Banglar Kavi Madhusudan. She wrote several novels, short stories, plays and even a travelogue. Nilima also translated several works into her native Bengali including biographies of Eleanor Roosevelt and author James Fenimore Cooper.

Her seminal work, though, was a collection of accounts of the rape of Bengali women during the 1971 liberation war called Ami Virangana Bolchhi, or I, the Heroine Speaks, published in 1996. Here, at last, the women brutalized during that time were given a voice, a chance to make their stories known to world after twenty-five years of silence.

Nilima was honored with the Ananya Literary Award in 1996 as well as the Begum Rokeya Medal. In 2000, she was given the Ekushey Padak Award, which is the one of the highest civilian honors in Bangladesh, named for the martyrs of the Language Movement of 1952, a political demonstration that turned violent and resulted in the killings of several students.

Fun Facts

Nilima published her autobiography in 1991 entitled Bindu-Visarga or Dot and Ghost.

She served as the Vice Chair Person of the World Women's Federation South Asian Zone.

Thanks for stopping by today. Your visit is very much appreciated. If you're participating in the Big A to Z, please click here to check out the other amazing participants.