Cornelia Maria ClappCornelia Maria Clapp (1849-1934) was a pioneering research zoologist who inspired women to seek careers in the natural sciences. After graduating from Mount Holyoke College in 1871, she became a teacher before a lecturer recognized her potential and invited her to professional meetings and field trips. She turned to Syracuse, one of the few universities then admitting women to graduate programs in the sciences, to earn her Ph.D. She returned to Mount Holyoke and emerged as a leading scholar in marine zoology, publishing in top journals and developing new teaching facilities. After 15 years of faculty debate, she was promoted to professor in 1904.

Sarah Loguen FraserSarah Loguen Fraser, daughter of abolitionist activists, was born January 29, 1850 in Syracuse, New York. Her family ran an Underground Railroad station that housed more than 1,500 self-emancipated people. After witnessing a child injured in a wagon incident with no one offering help, she resolved to become a physician. With the help of family doctor Michael Benedict, she received her doctorate from Syracuse University’s College of Medicine (now Upstate Medical University) in 1876, becoming the fourth African American woman in the United States to become a physician. In 1882 she relocated to Santo Domingo and became the first woman licensed to practice medicine in the Dominican Republic. After her death on April 9, 1933, flags in Puerto Plata waved at half-mast for nine days.

Rubye Prigmore TorreyRubye Torrey (1926-2017) was the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Syracuse University. Her career as a professor, researcher, and administrator advanced the field of radiation-electroanalytical chemistry. She was particularly interested in research ethics, food chemistry, and the electroanalysis of drinking water and human hair. Torrey was an active participant in the American Association for the Advancement of Science and an important member of the Women Chemists Committee. Read the SU News tribute →

Edith Marie FlanigenEdith Marie Flanigen (born 1929) began her career in chemistry in the early 1950s, when few women worked in the field. She received her master’s degree in inorganic-physical chemistry from Syracuse University in 1952 and went on to a 42-year career at Union Carbide, becoming its first woman senior research fellow in 1982. Flanigen was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2004 and won the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award for her groundbreaking work in zeolite and molecular sieve technology. She was the first woman to win the Perkin Medal (1992) and holds 108 U.S. patents, among many other honors.

Nina Vsevolod FedoroffNina Vsevolod Fedoroff (born 1942) is a molecular biologist known for her research in life sciences and biotechnology, contributing to modern techniques used to study and modify plants. She completed her undergraduate work at Syracuse University, graduating summa cum laude with a dual major in biology and chemistry, then earned her Ph.D. in molecular biology from Rockefeller University in 1972. In 2006 she received the National Medal of Science in Biological Sciences, the highest U.S. award for lifetime achievement in scientific research. In 2007, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice named her Science and Technology Adviser. Read more →

Eileen CollinsEileen Collins (born 1956) received her bachelor’s degree in mathematics and economics from Syracuse University in 1978, followed by a master’s in operations research from Stanford and a master’s in space systems management from Webster University. In 1999, then U.S. Air Force Colonel Collins became the first woman to both command and land a space shuttle, bringing Columbia down in a rare nighttime landing at the Kennedy Space Center. She retired in 2006 to pursue private interests. Read the SU News story →