National Women’s History Project Honors Three Women Academics

The National Women’s History Project has announced a list of 18 honorees for National Women’s History Month in March 2013. This year’s theme is “Women Inspiring Innovation Through Imagination: Celebrating Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.” Among the honorees are Elizabeth Blackwell, who founded the first medical school for women, Katherine Burr Blodgett, the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Cambridge, and Edith Clarke the first woman full professor of electrical engineering in the U.S.

Three of the 18 women selected as honorees currently hold faculty posts at universities in the United States.

Susan A. Gerbi is the George Eggleston Professor of Biochemistry at Brown University. Her research focuses on DNA replication. Dr. Gerbi joined the Brown University faculty in 1972 and she was named a full professor in 1982.

Dr. Gerbi is a graduate of Barnard College where she majored in zoology. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in biology from Yale University.

Jill Pipher is a professor of mathematics at Brown University. She began her academic career in 1985 as an instructor at the University of Chicago. She joined the Brown University faculty in 1989 and was promoted to full professor in 1994. Dr. Pipher is the president of the Association for Women in Mathematics and director of the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics.

Dr. Pipher holds a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. in harmonic analysis from the University of California at Los Angeles.

Susan Solomon is the Ellen Swallow Richards Professor of atmospheric chemistry and climate science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is known for her work on carbon emissions and their impact on the ozone layer and climate change.

Dr. Solomon is a graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology. She holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley.