Women in STEM

Kathleen Lonsdale FRS (1903–1971) was an early pioneer of X-ray crystallography, a field primarily concerned with studying the shapes of organic and inorganic molecules.

In 1945, Lonsdale was the first woman, along with biochemist Marjory Stephenson, elected as Fellow to the Royal Society. She was the first female professor at University College London, the first woman named President of the International Union of Crystallography, and the first woman to hold the post of President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

In 1956, Lonsdale was named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE), and in 1957 she received the Davy Medal of the Royal Society. In 1966, the "lonsdaleite", a rare form of meteoric diamond, was named after her.

Watch on YouTube as Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock and Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell FRS join forces to uncover the life and legacy of Kathleen Lonsdale.

Find out more about the life and career of Kathleen Lonsdale via Science in the Making, and in her Biographical Memoir written by Dorothy Hodgkin FRS.

Marjory Stephenson FRS (1885–1948) was a biochemist and, along with Kathleen Lonsdale, was one of the first two women elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1945.

Stephenson was a pioneer of chemical microbiology and wrote Bacterial Metabolism in 1930, which became a standard textbook for generations of microbiologists. She later co-founded the Society for General Microbiology and was elected as its second President in 1947.

Stephenson was also awarded an MBE for her work with the British Red Cross in France and Salonika during the First World War.

Watch on YouTube as Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock and Professor Judy Armitage FRS join forces to uncover the life and legacy of Marjory Stephenson.

Find out more about the life and career of Marjory Stephenson via Science in the Making, and in her Biographical Memoir written by Muriel Robertson FRS.