Born November 7, 1867 in Warsaw, Poland. She would become famous for her research into radioactivity, and was the first woman to win a Nobel prize.

Maria grew up in a family that valued education. As a young woman she went to Paris to study mathematics, chemistry and physics. She began studying at the Sorbonne in 1891, and was the first woman to teach there. Maria adopted the French spelling of her name (Marie) and also met Pierre Curie, who taught physics at University of Paris.

Marie and Pierre soon married, and teamed up to conduct research on radioactive substances. They found that the uranium ore, or pitchblende, contained much more radioactivity than could be explained solely by the uranium content. The Curie's began a search for the source of the radioactivity and discovered two highly radioactive elements, "radium" and "polonium."

The Curie's won the 1903 Nobel prize for physics for their discovery. They shared the award with another French physicist, Antoine Henri Bacquerel, who had discovered natural radioactivity. In 1906 Pierre, overworked and weakened by his prolonged exposure to radiation, died when he was run over by a horse-drawn coach.

Madame Curie continued her work on radioactive elements and won the 1911 Nobel prize for chemistry for isolating radium and studying its chemical properties. In 1914 she helped found the Radium Institute in Paris, and was the Institute's first director. When the first world war broke out, Madame Curie thought X-rays would help to locate bullets and facilitate surgery. It was also important not to move the wounded, so she invented X-ray vans and trained 150 female attendants.

In 1934, at the age of 67 Madame Curie died of leukemia, thought to have been brought on by exposure to the high levels of radiation involved in her research. After her death the Radium Institute was rename the Curie Institute in her honor.

In November of 1999 Randice-Lisa "Randi" Altschul was issued a series of patents for the world's first disposable cell phone. Trademarked the Phone-Card-Phone®, the device is the thickness of three credit cards and made from recycled paper products. This is a real cell phone (outgoing messages only) with 60 minutes of calling time and a hands free attachment. You can add more minutes or throw the device away after your calling time is used up. However, with the planned additional magnetic strip the cell phone would double as a credit card, swipeable for purchases with free airtime credits as a bonus. The retail price of the invention should average twenty dollars, with a two or three dollar rebate for returning the phone instead of trashing it. 

    Altschul thought up the invention after being tempted to toss her cell phone out of her car in frustration over a bad connection. She realized cell phones were too expensive to lose or throw away. After clearing the idea with her patent lawyer and making sure no one else had already invented a disposable cell phone, Randi Altschul together with engineer Lee Volte, patented both the disposable cell phone and the super thin technology (STTTM) needed for the Phone-Card-Phone and other intended products.

Patricia Billings received a patent in 1997 for a fire resistant building material called Geobond. Billings’ work as a sculpture artist put her on a journey to find or develop a durable additive to prevent her painstaking plaster works from accidentally falling and shattering. After nearly two decades of basement experiments, the result of her efforts was a solution which when added to a mixture of gypsum and concrete, creates an amazingly fire resistant, indestructible plaster. Not only can Geobond add longevity to artistic works of plastic, but also it is steadily being embraced by the construction industry as an almost universal building material. Geobond is made with non-toxic ingredients which makes it the ideal replacement for asbestos.

     Currently Geobond is being sold in more than 20 markets worldwide, and Patricia Billings, great grandmother, artist, and inventor remains at the helm of her carefully constructed Kansas City-based empire.

Edith Marie Flanigen, born in Buffalo, New York (1929), and recently retired (1994), is one of the most inventive chemists of all time. She has earned 102 U.S. patents for her innovations in the rather esoteric fields of petroleum research and product development.

After graduating as class president and valedictorian from D'Youville College in Buffalo, and after gaining an M.S. in Inorganic-Physical Chemistry from Syracuse University (1952), Flanigen began a forty-two year career in research at Union Carbide Corporation and UOP, a joint venture of Union Carbide and AlliedSignal. Her first area of expertise was the identification, extraction and purification of various silicone polymers (chemical compounds), which could then be used in chemical processes.

In 1956, Flanigen began working on "molecular sieves": crystal compounds with molecule-sized pores, that can be used to filter and separate the constituent parts of complex mixtures, and as "catalysts," substances that accelerate chemical reactions. In her career, Flanigen invented or developed over 200 different synthetic substances, the most important of which is "zeolite Y," a silicate sieve used to refine petroleum. Petroleum, or "crude oil," found in the earth, must be broken down into its parts (called "fractions") by a process called "catalytic cracking" before it can be used. Gasoline is only one of the lighter fractions of crude oil. Flanigen's zeolites are used as catalysts to optimize the conversion of crude oil to gasoline.

Flanigen's work is admittedly complex, but it has many practical benefits. First of all, her innovations have made the production of gasoline in the U.S. and around the world greater, cleaner, and safer. Secondly, her "sieves" are used in other processes, such as water purification and environmental clean-up. Finally, Flanigen's work has other commercial applications: for, she is the co-inventor of a synthetic emerald, produced and marketed by Union Carbide for a number of year. However unknown she may be to the general public, Edith Flanigen is deservedly a living legend to research chemists world-wide.

It was originally called "mistake out" and was the invention of Bette Nesmith Graham, a secretary in Dallas and a single mother raising a son, Michael (The Monkees). Bette was an artist and use to handling paints and inks. She used her own kitchen blender to mix up her first batch of liquid paper, the substance used to cover up mistakes made on paper.

Graham never intended to be an inventor; she wanted to be an artist. But shortly after World War II ended, she found herself divorced with a small child to support. She learned shorthand and typing and got a job as an executive secretary. An efficient employee who took pride in her work, Graham sought a better way to correct typing errors. She remembered that artists painted over their mistakes on canvas, so why couldn’t typists paint over their mistakes?

Graham put some tempera waterbase paint, colored to match the stationery she used, in a bottle and took her watercolor brush to the office. She used this to correct her typing mistakes… her boss never noticed. Soon another secretary saw the new invention and asked for some of the correcting fluid. Graham found a green bottle at home, wrote "Mistake Out" on a label, and gave it to her friend. Soon all the secretaries in the building were asking for some, too.

In 1956, Graham started the Mistake Out Company (later renamed Liquid Paper) from her North Dallas home. She turned her kitchen into a laboratory, mixing up an improved product with her electric mixer. Graham’s son, Michael Nesmith (later of The Monkees fame), and his friends filled bottles for her customers. But she made little money despite working nights and weekends to fill orders. One day an opportunity came in disguise. Graham made a mistake at work that she couldn’t correct, and her boss fired her. She now had time to devote to selling Liquid Paper, and business boomed.

By 1967, it had grown into a million dollar business. In 1968 she moved into her own plant and corporate headquarters, automated operations, and had 19 employees. That year she sold one million bottles. In 1975, Liquid Paper moved into a 35,000-sq. ft., international headquarters building in Dallas. The plant had equipment that could produce 500 bottles a minute. In 1976, the Liquid Paper Corporation turned out 25 million bottles. Its net earnings were $1.5 million. The company spent $1 million a year on advertising, alone.

Graham believed money to be a tool, not a solution to a problem. She set up two foundations to help women find new ways to earn a living. Graham died in 1980, six months after selling her corporation for $47.5 million.

Grace Hopper (1906-1992) was one of the first programmers to transform large digital computers from oversized calculators into relatively intelligent machines capable of understanding "human" instructions. Hopper developed a common language with which computers could communicate called Common Business-Oriented Language or COBOL, now the most widely used computer business language in the world. In addition to many other firsts, Hopper was the first woman to graduate from Yale University with a Ph.D. in Mathematics, and in 1985, was the first woman ever to reach the rank of admiral in the US Navy. Hopper’s work was never patented; her contributions were made before computer software technology was even considered a "patentable" field.

(Harvard Mark I Computer)

Stephanie Louise Kwolek’s research with high performance chemical compounds for the DuPont Company led to the development of a synthetic material called Kevlar which is five times stronger than the same weight of steel. Kevlar, patented by Kwolek in 1966, does not rust nor corrode and is extremely lightweight. Many police officers owe their lives to Stephanie Kwolek, for Kevlar is the material used in bullet proof vests. Other applications of the compound include underwater cables, brake linings, space vehicles, boats, parachutes, skis, and building materials.

Kwolek was born in New Kensington, Pennsylvania in 1923. Upon graduating in 1946 from the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon University) with a bachelor’s degree, Kwolek went to work as a chemist at the DuPont Company. She would ultimately obtain 28 patents during her 40-year tenure as a research scientist. In 1995, Kwolek was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Patsy Sherman was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1930. After college graduation, she joined 3M as a research chemist and was assigned to work on fluorochemical polymers. Her work was an essential part of the introduction of 3M’s first stain repellent and soil release textile treatments which have grown into an entire family of products known as Scotchgard® protectors.

Sherman regards the serendipitous discovery of Scotchgard® as one of her most significant works because many experts had written that such a product was "thermodynamically impossible." That day in the lab is legendary. Sherman and her colleague, Sam Smith, were working on another project when they observed that an accidental spill on a white tennis shoe would not wash off nor would solvent remove it. The area resisted soiling. They recognized the commercial potential of its application to fabrics during manufacture and by the consumer at home. So go ahead and put your feet up… the dirt will wash off.

Sherman was inducted into the Minnesota Inventors Hall of Fame in 1983.

Ellen Ochoa’s pre-doctoral work at Stanford University in electrical engineering led to the development of an optical system designed to detect imperfections in repeating patterns. This invention, patented in 1987, can be used for quality control in the manufacturing of various intricate parts. Dr. Ochoa later patented an optical system which can be used to robotically manufacture goods or in robotic guiding systems. In all Ellen Ochoa has received three patents, most recently in 1990.

    In addition to being an inventor, Dr. Ochoa is also a research scientist and astronaut for NASA who has logged hundreds of hours in space. (Photo - NASA)

The major scientific shortcoming of the Industrial Revolution that transformed the U.S. in the years after the Civil War was, and still is, pollution. One of the pioneers in the fight against pollution, especially in large cities, was the independent inventor Mary Walton.

As early as 1879, Walton developed a method for minimizing the environmental hazards of the smoke that up until then was pouring unchecked from factories all over the country. Walton's system (patent #221,880) deflected the emissions being produced into water tanks, where the pollutants were retained and then flushed into the city sewage system.

Some years later, Walton applied her ingenuity to a different kind of air pollution---noise. The elevated trains being installed throughout the larger cities of the U.S. in the 1880s were producing an intolerable amount of rattling and clanging: sociologists even blamed the noise for some urbanites' nervous breakdowns and neuroses! Walton, who lived in Manhattan, set out to solve the problem. She set up a model railroad track in her basement, and in time discovered an excellent sound-dampening apparatus. She cradled the rails in a box-like framework of wood, which was painted with tar, lined with cotton, and filled with sand. As the vibrations from the rails were absorbed by the surrounding materials, so was the sound.

After successful trials fitting her apparatus under the struts that supported real els, Walton received patent #327,422 (granted February 8, 1891). She sold the rights to New York City's Metropolitan Railroad, which thrived thanks to Walton's new, environment-friendly system. Walton herself was hailed as a hero---and as a feminist. As the Woman's Journal put it twenty years later: "The most noted machinists and inventors of the century had given their attention to the subject without being able to provide a solution, when, lo, a woman's brain did the work..."