Six-year-old Suzanna Goodin, tired of cleaning the cat food spoon, came up with the idea of an edible spoon-shaped cracker. She won a grand prize for her invention in the Weekly Reader National Invention Contest.
At age 9, Margaret Knight began working in a cotton mill, where she saw a steel-tipped shuttle fly out of a loom and hit a nearby worker. As a result, Margaret devised her first invention: a shuttle restraining device. She went on to invent the machine that makes the square-bottom paper bags we still use for groceries today. That machine was patented in 1871.
Eleven-year-old Jeanie Low received a patent on March 10, 1992, for inventing the Kiddie Stool—a foldup stool that fits under the sink so kids can unfold it, stand on it, and reach the sink on their own!
Becky Schroeder began her patenting career when she was 14 years old. She put phosphorescent paint on paper under her writing paper so that she could write in the dark. This invention was later used in all sorts of ways. Doctors use it in hospitals to read patients' charts at night without waking them, and astronauts use it when their electrical systems are turned down for recharging.
Fourteen-year-old Pamela Sica invented a push-button device that raises the floor of a car so that cargo can be raised and easily removed. Her invention won a grand prize for her age group in the Weekly Reader National Invention Contest. She wanted to patent her invention but found that it was too expensive.
Eight-year-old Chelsea Lannon received a patent in 1994 for her “pocket diaper,” a diaper that has a pocket that holds a baby wipe and baby powder puff. She got her idea while helping her mother with her baby brother—while she was still in kindergarten!
Marie Curie is considered the most famous of all women scientists. By the time she was 16, Marie had already won a gold medal at the Russian lycée in Poland upon the completion of her secondary education. In 1891, almost penniless, she began her education at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1903 her discovery of radioactivity earned her the Nobel Prize in physics. In 1911 she won it for chemistry. She was the only woman ever to win two Nobel Prizes.
Gerty Radnitz Cori (Physiology or Medicine, 1947) Gerty Cori was the first American woman to win a Nobel Prize in science. She studied enzymes and hormones, and her work brought researchers closer to understanding diabetes. She won the Nobel Prize for discovering the enzymes that convert glycogen into sugar and back again to glycogen.
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (Chemistry, 1964) Dorothy discovered the structures of penicillin and vitamin B(12). She won the Nobel Prize for determining the structure of biochemical compounds essential to combating pernicious anemia.
HIV was discovered by a woman; Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (Physiology or Medicine, 2008) Barré-Sinoussi won the Nobel Prize with Luc Montagnier(both France) for their discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
Both Marie Curie and her daughter Irene Joliot-Curie were Nobel Prize-winning physicists.
Betty Rozier and her daughter Lisa Vallino invented a device that made intravenous procedures safer and and more comfortable for patients.
