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Do you have a favorite professor? One who makes you laugh and then makes you learn? One whose passion is contagious and inspires you to pursue your own? Professors have such important jobs; they are guides, leaders and teachers, and the good ones leave impressions that last a lifetime.
But despite their importance, Rutgers Institute for Higher Learning reports that women make up only “24 percent of all full professors in the United States.” This trend shows the gap between men and women in academia.
So, it’s time to celebrate female professors who have drawn national and international attention to their efforts. Here is a list of some of America’s most renowned female professors.
Temple Grandin is a professor of animal science at Colorado State University where she works for the ethical treatment of livestock. She is also well known as a spokesperson with autism who is leading a successful, productive life. Her life and works are detailed in the popular film, “Temple Grandin.”
Known for her work in feminist and gender theory, Butler is the woman who has written dozens of books on this topic. Her collection is studied in universities throughout the world. Aside from being a writer, she is also a professor of comparative literature and rhetoric at UC Berkeley.
Rice now works as a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. Before she took this position, she was the first African-American woman to hold the position of United States Secretary of State.
Zhang is a Professor of Computer Science at UCLA. She is considered a pioneer in her field because she was the woman who helped found the Internet Engineering Task Force, an organization that manages Internet standards.
Stanley is a professor at the University of Western Australia where, as an epidemiologist, she studies the spread of diseases with a focus on public health. Stanley is so well known that in 2014, the Fiona Stanley Hospital was named after her.
Mary-Claire King is a geneticist based at the University of Washington. King is known for her discovery that humans and chimpanzees are genetically 99% the same and that breast cancer is hereditary.
A social psychologist, Amy Cuddy works at Harvard University, where she studies how humans influence each other and how emotions and hormones play a role in our lives. Her TED talk, “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are,” is one of the most popular talks on the site, with over 34 million views to date.
Lisa Randall is a theoretical physicist based at Harvard University. She has made many significant contributions to the fields of particle physics and cosmology, which helped her attain the position of Frank B Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard.
Picard is best known as the founder of the Affective Computing Research Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The role of this company is to explore the relationship between emotions and technology. Additionally, Picard is a Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT.
Known for her work as a concert musician and composer, Harbach is now a Professor of Music at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Many of her pieces have been featured in films and musicals. She is also the founder of Women in the Arts-St. Louis, which celebrates the accomplishments of female musicians.
Each of these 10 women have made great strides in academia, demonstrating considerable innovation and intelligence along the way. They are not just scientists, humanitarians and philosophers, they are also women who have worked all their lives to make names for themselves and to show the world just how much women can do.
