Five Women Scientists Few People Know by Jessy Randall

When I was about ten years old, my elementary school library had a section for biographies. They were in alphabetical order, and almost all the biographies were of men – Alexander Graham Bell, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and so on. The first biography of a woman was for Abigail Adams, and the second was for Elizabeth Blackwell. I became fascinated with Blackwell, who received a medical degree in 1849, and read everything I could find on her. I’ve been interested in historical women scientists ever since.

I’m a librarian and a writer, and in about 2016, when the newly elected president of the United States bragged that he could assault women with impunity, I felt like I had to do something. But what could I do? As a librarian and a writer, what possible action could I take? I began a research project on the subject of historical women in STEM fields. I figured it wouldn’t make much difference to the world, but it would make me feel better, and it did. The project resulted in two poetry collections:  Mathematics for Ladies (2022) and The Path of Most Resistance (2025), both published by Gold SF, the feminist science fiction imprint of the University of London’s Goldsmiths Press. Links to many of the poems, along with indexes and an extensive bibliography, are at jessyrandall.com.

Carolyn Attneave

 

Carolyn Attneave (1920-1992)

The                       summers I spent with my Indian grandparents, so
many                    memories, mostly happy. Later I found
ways                     to improve the lives of Japanese American
people                  incarcerated in California during the war. You
are                        right to think these communities changed me. I was
very                      changed. Before I was a keeper of fire, I was
important           to others and they were equally important
to                          me. So I include communities in scholarship. No
one                       is alone in their woe or celebration. We love one
another                , that’s how we live, isn’t it obvious?

In a published profile, psychologist Carolyn Attneave (Delaware Indian), founder of network therapy, said that even in retirement she continued to study “the many ways people are very important to one another.” According to her interviewers, “among the Hopi, women like Carolyn have been chosen as ‘keepers of the fire” (Fleming and Lafromboise).

June Bacon-Bercey

June Bacon-Bercey (1928-2019)

My UCLA advisor said, forget Meteorology –
major in Home Economics. I got an A
in Thermodynamics and a D in Home Ec.,
and I stuck to my own plan.

The weather’s unpredictable. In Buffalo, New York,
I landed my dream job when the former weatherman
was arrested for bank robbery. TV’s a strange place.

A few years later I won big on The $128,000 Question
and established a scholarship for women to study
atmospheric sciences. And that, my friends,
that is how you make it rain.

In 1954, June Bacon-Bercey became the first Black woman to earn a degree in meteorology. In 1972 she became the first female TV meteorologist in the world, replacing Buffalo, New York weatherman Frank Benny when he was arrested for robbing a bank. (Benny, who also hosted Bowling for Dollars and Payday Playhouse, was acquitted for the theft of $503 by reason of temporary insanity.) A few years later, Bacon-Bercey was a contestant on the television game show The $128,000 Question and used her winnings to set up college scholarships for young women interested in meteorology. Soon after after Bacon-Bercey’s death in 2019, the American Geophysical Union reestablished her meteorological scholarship: www.agu.org/honors/bacon-bercey.

Rachel Fuller Brown and Elizabeth Lee Hazen

Rachel Fuller Brown (1898-1980)

Every day I waited for the mail
like a lovestruck dope.
The messages I longed for
looked nasty and smelled worse.
My side was the easy one.
Elizabeth had to concoct those jars,
invent the recipes.
Together we got rich.

Elizabeth Lee Hazen (1885-1975)

Instead of love poems, I sent dirt.
Soups of fungus-fighting bacteria
in glass jars, packed in wool
and hope. No other word for it.
My side was the easy one.
Rachel had to unwrap my messes
and solve them.
Together we got rich.

In the 1940s, chemist Rachel Fuller Brown in New York City and biologist Elizabeth Lee Hazen in Albany, NY collaborated by mail to develop an antifungal antibiotic “wonder drug,” nystatin, named after New York State. They donated their royalties, over 13 million dollars, to scientific research, forming the Brown-Hazen Research Fund.

Mary G. Ross

Mary G. Ross (1908-2008)

I stumped the dummies
on What’s My Line
for six long questions.

“If war broke out tomorrow,
would this product be useful?”

So many secrets.
The government word is
classified.

“Is it bigger than a Colt .44?”
“Is it as big as a tank?”

The audience burst into applause
when they read my placard:

DESIGNS ROCKET MISSILES
AND SATELLITES
(LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT)

Bennet Cerf thought maybe
I counted down the numbers
to set the rockets off.

He laughed and laughed. It was TV.
No one said Native American
or Indian or Cherokee.

I was demure in my dark gown,
dark gloves, and sparkling jewels.
It was 1958. I kept my lips zipped.

Aerospace engineer Mary G. Ross appeared on the television program “What’s My Line” on June 22, 1958. The episode is available in full at https://youtu.be/vFlvpMf-dIo?si=5zC4d4iIXhsn0bIM.

Amplifying Women in STEM

The poem about Mary G. Ross appears in Mathematics for Ladies (2022). All others are from The Path of Most Resistance (2025). For more information, including a list of all the scientists in both books, visit https://jessyrandall.com/mathematics-for-ladies-and-the-path-of-most-resistance/. My thanks go to Colorado College Physics Professor Barbara Whitten, who gave a talk in 2015 on the astronomer Sarah Frances Whiting and jumpstarted this series of poems.

Carolyn Attneave, June Bacon-Bercey, Rachel Fuller Brown, Elizabeth Lee Hazen and Mary G. Ross are Nasty Women in STEM.

© Jessy Randall 2026

Works Cited

Fleming, Candice and Teresa D. Lafromboise. “Life Lines: Keeper of the Fire.” Journal of Counseling & Development, May 1990.

Randall, Jessy. Mathematics for Ladies. Gold SF, 2022.

Randall, Jessy. The Path of Most Resistance. Gold SF, 2025.