4 women inventors you need to thank this Women’s Day
There’s no denying that our world is predominantly male-dominated. But fortunately, that hasn’t stopped women from various generations to stand out in different fields of life be it science, technology, academics, literature, sports and more. From Marie Curie discovering radium to Amelia Earhart flying solo across the Atlantic to Rani Lakshmibai giving the British a brave fight and Kalpana Chawla conquering the outer space – women have not only done it all, they have been no less than accomplished. Today, on the auspicious occasion of International Women’s Day, let us thank some of the women inventors who have changed the course of history.
Chandrima Shaha
Currently serving as the President of Indian National Science Academy (the first female President of the institution as well) as well as the J.C. Bose Chair Distinguished Professor at the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Dr. Chandrima Shaha is an Indian biologist of international fame. She specialises in cell biology and is best known for finding the infamous ‘Leishmania’ parasite that causes the dangerous and neglected tropical ailment called Black Fever (Kala Azar) in 2017. She has also greatly contributed in understanding the cell death processes in different model organisms for which she had received the 2003 Special Award on the occasion of 50th Anniversary of DNA Double Helix Discovery. She has also been the former Director and Professor of Eminence at the National Institute of Immunology.
Anna Connelly
American inventor Anna Connelly in 1887 invented the first modern fire escape. It was an external metal staircase that could be used by a person to descend onto the back side of a building without injury. Connelly even added an escape chute, just in case someone did fall. Clever, isn’t it? Prior to Connelly’s invention, escaping from tenement fires were quite risky and often fatal. However, what’s interesting is that apart from saving lives, her invention also gave way to one of the first New York City building codes, which needed residential buildings to have secondary exits for emergencies. As you might be aware, the code exists till date and so do the fire escapes.
Josephine Cochran
An American socialite based out of Chicago, Josephine Cochran in 1872 invented the first ever automatic dishwasher. In other words, you can say that it took a woman’s common sense to develop a dishwasher that actually cleaned dishes without any hassle. Guess what her design did? It used the pressure of water rather than scrubbers (like in earlier models) to remove food debris from utensils. Interestingly, her invention was a result of her eagerness to host dinner parties but hatred for washing dishes thereafter! While it took a while for Cochran to make an impression among homemakers like her, her invention did catch the attention of fancy hoteliers and restaurateurs when she displayed it at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. What made it stand out was the fact that her model could both be hand-operated and run by electricity. To each their own, really!
Stephanie Kwolek
This 20th century Polish-American chemist was working at the DuPont manufacturing company and looking for strong but lightweight plastics to use in car tires. But instead, she ended up discovering what is today known as Kevlar. Yes, we are talking about the bullet-proof fibre that has saved countless of lives since its inception in 1966. In fact, she is often known as the first person to come upon an entire family of strong, heat-resistant and durable synthetic fibres that could do it all, from preventing bullets to bridging cables, to fixing canoes and lining frying pans. Multi-purpose really, isn’t it? A specialist in polymer chemistry, Kwolek received a number of notable awards in her career starting with the National Medal of Technology and Invention to National Inventors Hall of Fame.