100 Notable alumni of
Mount Holyoke College
Updated:
Mount Holyoke College is 685th in the world, 256th in North America, and 236th in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 100 notable alumni from Mount Holyoke College sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff.
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Emily Dickinson
- Enrolled in Mount Holyoke College
- Studied in 1847-1848
- Occupations
- writerpoet
- Biography
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Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, into a prominent family with strong ties to its community. After studying at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she briefly attended the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's home in Amherst. Evidence suggests that Dickinson lived much of her life in isolation. Considered an eccentric by locals, she developed a penchant for white clothing and was known for her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, even to leave her bedroom. Dickinson never married, and most of her friendships were based entirely upon correspondence.
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Elaine Chao
- Occupations
- politicianinternational forum participanteconomist
- Biography
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Elaine Lan Chao is an American businesswoman and former government official who served as United States secretary of labor in the administration of George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009 and as United States secretary of transportation in the administration of Donald Trump from 2017 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, Chao was the first Asian American woman to serve in a presidential cabinet or as secretary of transportation.
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Chloé Zhao
- Occupations
- film editorscreenwritermanufacturerfilm screenwriterfilm producer
- Biography
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Chloé Zhao is a Chinese-born filmmaker. She is known primarily for her work on independent films.
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Maryanne Trump Barry
- Enrolled in Mount Holyoke College
- Graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- magistratejudgelawyer
- Biography
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Maryanne Trump Barry was an American attorney and United States federal judge. She became an assistant United States attorney in 1974 and was first appointed to the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey by President Ronald Reagan in 1983. In 1999, she was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit by President Bill Clinton.
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Mahua Moitra
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Mahua Moitra is an Indian politician and former investment banker. She won the 2019 Indian general election as an All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) party candidate from Krishnanagar and served as a Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha from 2019 to 2023.
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Virginia Apgar
- Enrolled in Mount Holyoke College
- 1925-1929 studied zoology
- Occupations
- university teacherlibrariananesthesiologistphysicianscientist
- Biography
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Virginia Apgar was an American physician, obstetrical anesthesiologist and medical researcher, best known as the inventor of the Apgar score, a way to quickly assess the health of a newborn child immediately after birth in order to combat infant mortality. In 1952, she developed the 10-point Apgar score to assist physicians and nurses in assessing the status of newborns. Given at one minute and five minutes after birth, the Apgar test measures a child's breathing, skin color, reflexes, motion, and heart rate. A friend said, "She probably did more than any other physician to bring the problem of birth defects out of back rooms." She was a leader in the fields of anesthesiology and teratology, and introduced obstetrical considerations to the established field of neonatology.
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Michelle Hurst
- Occupations
- actorfilm actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Michelle Hurst is an American actress. She played Miss Claudette Pelage in the first season of the streaming television series Orange Is the New Black.
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Nancy Kissinger
- Occupations
- philanthropist
- Biography
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Nancy Sharon Kissinger is an American philanthropist and Rockefeller political aide, and the widow of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The couple married on March 30, 1974, in Arlington, Virginia.
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Elizabeth Holloway Marston
- Years
- 1893-1993 (aged 100)
- Occupations
- psychologist
- Biography
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Sarah Elizabeth Marston was an American attorney and psychologist. She is credited, with her husband William Moulton Marston, with the development of the systolic blood pressure measurement used to detect deception; the predecessor to the polygraph.
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Deborah Harkness
- Enrolled in Mount Holyoke College
- In 1986 graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- university teacherwriterhistorianexecutive producerblogger
- Biography
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Deborah Harkness is an American scholar and novelist, best known as a historian and as the author of the All Souls Trilogy, which consists of The New York Times best-selling novel A Discovery of Witches and its sequels Shadow of Night and The Book of Life. Her latest book is Time's Convert: A Novel, both an origin story of the trilogy's Marcus Whitmore character, set in the American War of Independence and the French Revolution, and a sequel to the All Souls Trilogy.
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Frances Perkins
- Enrolled in Mount Holyoke College
- Studied in 1902
- Occupations
- social workerfactory inspectorwritersuffragistpolitician
- Biography
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Frances Perkins was an American workers-rights advocate who served as the fourth United States Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, the longest serving in that position. A member of the Democratic Party, Perkins was the first woman ever to serve in a presidential cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her longtime friend, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped make labor issues important in the emerging New Deal coalition. She was one of two Roosevelt cabinet members to remain in office for his entire presidency (the other being Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes).
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Helen Pitts Douglass
- Occupations
- suffragistjournalistteacher
- Biography
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Helen Pitts Douglass was an American suffragist, known for being the second wife of Frederick Douglass. She also created the Frederick Douglass Memorial and Historical Association, which became the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site.
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Sho Madjozi
- Enrolled in Mount Holyoke College
- Graduated with creative work in Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- musicianrapperpoet
- Biography
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Maya Christinah Xichavo Wegerif, known professionally as Sho Madjozi, is a South African rapper, singer, songwriter, actress and poet. Madjozi incorporates the Tsonga culture through her music and public image. In 2019, Madjozi was named as one of Forbes Africa's 30 Under 30 for her contribution in the music and entertainment sector.
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Lucy Stone
- Occupations
- women's rights activistwriterabolitionistjournalisteditor
- Biography
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Lucy Stone was an American orator, abolitionist and suffragist who was a vocal advocate for and organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women's rights and against slavery. Stone was known for using her birth name after marriage, contrary to the custom of women taking their husband's surname.
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Susan Kare
- Enrolled in Mount Holyoke College
- In 1975 graduated with Bachelor of Arts in art
- Occupations
- computer scientistdesigneruser interface designerComputer graphics designergraphic designer
- Biography
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Susan Kare is an American artist and graphic designer, who contributed interface elements and typefaces for the first Apple Macintosh personal computer from 1983 to 1986. She was employee #10 and Creative Director at NeXT, the company formed by Steve Jobs after he left Apple in 1985. She was a design consultant for Microsoft, IBM, Sony Pictures, Facebook, and Pinterest. As of 2023 Kare was an employee of Niantic Labs. As a pioneer of pixel art and of the graphical computer interface, she has been celebrated as one of the most significant designers of modern technology.
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Nita Lowey
- Enrolled in Mount Holyoke College
- In 1959 graduated with Bachelor of Science
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Nita Sue Lowey is an American politician who formerly served as a U.S. Representative from New York from 1989 until 2021. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Lowey also served as co-Dean of the New York Congressional Delegation, along with former U.S. Representative Eliot Engel. Lowey's district was numbered as the 20th from 1989 to 1993, as the 18th from 1993 to 2013, and as the 17th beginning in 2013. The district includes many of New York City's inner northern suburbs, such as White Plains, Purchase, Tarrytown, Mount Kisco, and Armonk. She was succeeded by fellow Democrat Mondaire Jones.
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Carol Higgins Clark
- Enrolled in Mount Holyoke College
- Graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- actornovelistwriter
- Biography
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Carol Higgins Clark was an American mystery author and actress. She was the daughter of suspense writer Mary Higgins Clark, with whom she co-authored several Christmas novels, and the former sister-in-law of author Mary Jane Clark.
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Suzan-Lori Parks
- Occupations
- novelistplaywrightwriterscreenwriter
- Biography
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Suzan-Lori Parks is an American playwright, screenwriter, musician and novelist. Her play Topdog/Underdog won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002; Parks was the first African-American woman to receive the award for drama. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.
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Kathleen Hicks
- Enrolled in Mount Holyoke College
- In 1991 graduated with Bachelor of Arts in history and politics
- Occupations
- academiccivil servant
- Biography
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Kathleen Anne Holland Hicks is an American government official who has served as the United States deputy secretary of defense since 2021. She is the first Senate-confirmed woman in this role and is the highest ranking woman currently serving in the United States Department of Defense. Hicks previously served as the principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy during the Obama administration. By 2020 Hicks was an academic and national security advisor working as a senior vice president and director of the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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Glenda Hatchett
- Occupations
- writerlawyerjudgemotivational speakerjournalist
- Biography
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Glenda A. Hatchett, known professionally as Judge Hatchett, is an American television personality, lawyer, and judge who is the star of the former court show, Judge Hatchett and current day The Verdict with Judge Hatchett, and founding partner at the national law firm, The Hatchett Firm.
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Barbara Smith
- Occupations
- politicianwriter
- Biography
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Barbara Smith is an American lesbian feminist and socialist who has played a significant role in Black feminism in the United States. Since the early 1970s, she has been active as a scholar, activist, critic, lecturer, author, and publisher of Black feminist thought. She has also taught at numerous colleges and universities for 25 years. Smith's essays, reviews, articles, short stories and literary criticism have appeared in a range of publications, including The New York Times Book Review, The Black Scholar, Ms., Gay Community News, The Guardian, The Village Voice, Conditions and The Nation. She has a twin sister, Beverly Smith, who is also a lesbian feminist activist and writer.
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Joan Jonas
- Occupations
- visual artistperformance artistuniversity teacherchoreographervideo artist
- Biography
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Joan Jonas is an American visual artist and a pioneer of video and performance art, and one of the most important artists to emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Jonas' projects and experiments were influential in the creation of video performance art as a medium. Her influences also extended to conceptual art, theatre, performance art and other visual media. She lives and works in New York and Nova Scotia, Canada.
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Adrienne Arsht
- Occupations
- lawyer
- Biography
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Adrienne Arsht is an American businesswoman and philanthropist.
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Ella Grasso
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Ella Rosa Giovianna Oliva Grasso was an American politician and member of the Democratic Party who served as the 83rd Governor of Connecticut from January 8, 1975, to December 31, 1980, after rejecting past offers of candidacies for Senate and Governor. She was the first woman elected to this office and the first woman to be elected governor of a U.S. state without having been the spouse or widow of a former governor. She resigned as governor due to her battle with ovarian cancer.
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Melinda Mullins
- Occupations
- stage actortelevision actorfilm actoractor
- Biography
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Melinda Mullins is an American film, television and theatre actress.
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Kavita Ramdas
- Occupations
- international forum participantscientist
- Biography
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Kavita Nandini Ramdas is an American feminist and activist.
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Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
- Occupations
- novelistpoetchildren's writerwriter
- Biography
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Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman was an American author.
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Beth Karas
- Years
- 1961-.. (age 63)
- Occupations
- lawyerjournalist
- Biography
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Beth Karas is an attorney and TV commentator who worked as a Senior Reporter with truTV, providing commentary on a number of high-profile cases, including the rape trial of Kobe Bryant, the Martha Stewart trial, and the murder trials of Robert Blake, Scott Peterson, and Jodi Arias.
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Mona Sutphen
- Years
- 1967-.. (age 57)
- Occupations
- politicianwriter
- Biography
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Mona K. Sutphen was the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2011. She is currently a partner and Head of Investment Strategies at The Vistria Group, a Chicago-based private equity firm founded by Marty Nesbitt and Kip Kirkpatrick. From 2013 to 2019, she was a partner in Macro Advisory Partners LLP and from 2011 to 2013 was a managing director at UBS AG, covering geopolitical risk, macro-policy trends and their impact on the global economy. She held a diplomatic position in the National Security Council during the Clinton Administration.
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Dorothy Hansine Andersen
- Enrolled in Mount Holyoke College
- In 1922 graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- pathologistphysicianpediatricianscientist
- Biography
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Dorothy Hansine Andersen was the American physician and researcher who first identified and named cystic fibrosis. As a renowned pathologist and pediatrician at Columbia University’s Babies Hospital, she remained at the forefront of research and care for this new disease for the rest of her life.
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Helen Sawyer Hogg
- Occupations
- astronomeruniversity teacher
- Biography
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Helen Battles Sawyer Hogg was an American-Canadian astronomer who pioneered research into globular clusters and variable stars. She was the first female president of several astronomical organizations and a scientist when many universities would not award scientific degrees to women. Her scientific advocacy and journalism included astronomy columns in the Toronto Star ("With the Stars", 1951–81) and the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada ("Out of Old Books", 1946–65). She was considered a "great scientist and a gracious person" over a career of sixty years.
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Susan Shirk
- Years
- 1945-.. (age 79)
- Occupations
- political scientist
- Biography
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Susan L. Shirk is an American political scientist and China specialist currently serving as a research professor at University of California, San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy.
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Jane Garvey
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Jane F. Garvey is a former government transportation and public works official, now an American business executive, currently serving as the chairman of Meridiam North America. She was the first female Administrator of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration from 1997 to 2002. In May 2018, she was tapped to become the first female Chairman of United Continental Holdings.
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Rabiya Javeri Agha
- Years
- 1963-.. (age 61)
- Occupations
- civil servantjournalist
- Biography
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Rabiya Javeri Agha is the Chairperson of the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) in Pakistan, and a retired civil servant officer who served in the Government of Pakistan in BPS-22 grade as Federal Secretary. She was the first unanimously elected female President of the Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS) Officers Association, and she has had an extensive career ranging from human rights, women's development, sustainable tourism, energy, finance and trade.
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Ann O'Leary
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Ann M. O'Leary is an American political advisor, attorney, and nonprofit leader, who served as Chief of Staff to California Governor Gavin Newsom and as co-chair of the Governor's Task Force on Business and Jobs Recovery. She is now a partner at the international law firm Jenner & Block.
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Yousef Munayyer
- Occupations
- political scientist
- Biography
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Yousef Munayyer is a Palestinian-American writer and political analyst based in Washington, D.C., United States. He was the executive director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. Previously he directed The Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development and its educational program, the Palestine Center and was also a policy analyst with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
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Louise Taft
- Biography
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Louisa Maria "Louise" Torrey was the second wife of Alphonso Taft, and the mother of U.S. President William Howard Taft.
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Olympia Brown
- Occupations
- suffragistwomen's rights activist
- Biography
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Olympia Brown was an American minister and suffragist. She was the first woman to be ordained as clergy with the consent of her denomination. Brown was also an articulate advocate for women's rights and one of the few first generation suffragists who were able to vote with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.
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Ruth Muskrat
- Occupations
- writerpoet
- Biography
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Ruth Muskrat Bronson was a Cherokee poet, educator and Indian rights activist. After completing her education, Bronson became the first Guidance and Placement Officer of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She served as executive secretary for the National Congress of American Indians, which was founded in 1944, and created their legislative news service.
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Rachel Fuller Brown
- Occupations
- chemistinventormicrobiologist
- Biography
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Rachel Fuller Brown was an American chemist best known for her long-distance collaboration with microbiologist Elizabeth Lee Hazen in developing the first useful antifungal antibiotic, nystatin, while doing research for the Division of Laboratories and Research of the New York State Department of Health. Brown received her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and her Ph.D from the University of Chicago. She was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1994.
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Mabel H. Grosvenor
- Occupations
- pediatrician
- Biography
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Mabel Harlakenden Grosvenor was a Canadian-born American pediatrician. She was a granddaughter and secretary to the scientist and telephone pioneer Alexander Graham Bell. She lived in both Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia and Washington, D.C.
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Sara Menker
- Occupations
- business executiveinternational forum participant
- Biography
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Sara Menker is an Entrepreneur and the CEO of Gro Intelligence, a company that uses artificial intelligence to forecast agricultural and climate trends. She is a trustee of the Mandela Institute for Development Studies and was elected one of the World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders.
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Jean Taylor
- Occupations
- university teachermathematician
- Biography
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Jean Ellen Taylor is an American mathematician who is a professor emerita at Rutgers University and visiting faculty at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University.
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Cornelia Clapp
- Enrolled in Mount Holyoke College
- Studied in 1871
- Occupations
- university teacherichthyologistmalacologistentomologistscientific illustrator
- Biography
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Cornelia Maria Clapp was an American educator and zoologist, specializing in marine biology. She earned the first Ph.D. in biology awarded to a woman in the United States from Syracuse University in 1889, and she would earn a second doctoral degree from the University of Chicago in 1896. Clapp was the first female researcher employed at the Marine Biological Laboratory, as well as its first female trustee. She was rated one of the top 150 zoologists in the United States in 1903, and her name was starred in the first five editions of American Men of Science (now American Men and Women of Science).
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Suchi Saria
- Years
- 1980s
- Occupations
- academic
- Biography
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Suchi Saria is an Associate Professor of Machine Learning and Healthcare at Johns Hopkins University, where she uses big data to improve patient outcomes. She is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. From 2022 to 2023, she was an investment partner at AIX Ventures. AIX Ventures is a venture capital fund that invests in artificial intelligence startups.
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Mallika Dutt
- Occupations
- activist
- Biography
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Mallika Dutt leads Inter-Connected, a new initiative that uplifts the independent nature of self, community and planet to advance collective wellbeing. She brings together the power of ancient wisdom and spiritual practices with contemporary technologies and storytelling. Dutt is the founder of Breakthrough, a human rights organization dedicated to making violence against women unacceptable.
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Mary Mazzio
- Occupations
- lawyerrowerfilm directorscreenwriter
- Biography
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Mary Mazzio is an American documentary filmmaker, attorney, and a rower for the United States in the 1992 Olympics. She founded the independent film company 50 Eggs.
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Karen Lewis
- Occupations
- trade unionistteacher
- Biography
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Karen Lewis was an American educator and labor leader who served as president of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), Chicago's division of the American Federation of Teachers, from 2010 to 2014. For nearly 20 years before becoming president of the teachers union, she was a high school chemistry teacher.
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Janet C. Hall
- Occupations
- judgelawyer
- Biography
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Janet C. Hall is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. She sits in New Haven.
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Tami Gouveia
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Tami L. Gouveia is a former State Representative who represented the 14th Middlesex District in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. She represented the towns of Concord and Carlisle, and parts of the towns of Acton and Chelmsford.
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Margaret Morse Nice
- Occupations
- naturalistuniversity teacherornithologist
- Biography
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Margaret Morse Nice was an American ornithologist, ethologist, and child psychologist who made an extensive study of the life history of the song sparrow and was author of Studies in the Life History of the Song Sparrow (1937). She observed and recorded hierarchies in chicken about three decades ahead of Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe who coined the term "pecking order". After her marriage, she made observations on language learning in her children and wrote numerous research papers.
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Leocadia I. Zak
- Born in
-
United States - Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Leocadia Irine Zak serves as the ninth president of Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia. Prior to that, Zak served as director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, where she led an agency dedicated to encouraging economic growth in emerging markets and the export of U.S. goods and services to those markets. After being nominated by President Barack Obama in November 2009, Zak was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 10, 2010.
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Ayesha Harruna Attah
- Enrolled in Mount Holyoke College
- Graduated with Bachelor of Science in biochemistry
- Occupations
- novelistwriter
- Biography
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Ayesha Harruna Attah is a Ghanaian-born fiction writer. She lives in Senegal.
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Susan Lynch
- Born in
- United States
- Occupations
- physicianpediatrician
- Biography
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Susan E. Lynch is an American pediatrician and the wife of John Lynch, the Democratic former governor of New Hampshire. Susan Lynch was the First Lady of New Hampshire from 2005 to 2013.
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Sharon Har
- Occupations
- politicianlawyer
- Biography
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Sharon E. Har is an American politician. She served as a member of the Hawaii House of Representatives for District 42 between January 16, 2013 to November 8, 2022 for the Democratic Party. She was succeeded by Diamond Garcia. Har served consecutively from January 2007 until 2013 in the District 40 seat.
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Sabina Murray
- Occupations
- screenwriternovelist
- Biography
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Sabina Murray is Filipina-American screenwriter and a novelist. She currently is a professor in the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
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Jane Hammond
- Occupations
- painterprintmaker
- Biography
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Jane R. Hammond is an American artist who lives and works in New York City. She was influenced by the late composer John Cage. She collaborated with the poet John Ashbery, making 62 paintings based on titles suggested by Ashbery; she also collaborated with the poet Raphael Rubinstein.
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Vera Kistiakowsky
- Occupations
- physicist
- Biography
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Vera Kistiakowsky was an American research physicist, teacher, and arms control activist. She was professor emerita at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the physics department and Laboratory for Nuclear Science, and was an activist for women's participation in the sciences. Kistiakowsky was an expert in experimental particle physics and observational astrophysics. Her hobbies included climbing mountains, and she liked to maintain an energetic and fit lifestyle. She was the first woman appointed MIT professor of physics in 1972.
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Janet Bond Arterton
- Occupations
- judgelawyer
- Biography
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Janet MacArthur Bond Arterton is an inactive senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut.
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Mildred Trotter
- Occupations
- anatomistanthropologist
- Biography
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Mildred Trotter was an American pioneer as a forensic historian and forensic anthropologist.
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Minerva J. Chapman
- Occupations
- artistpainter
- Biography
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Minerva Josephine Chapman was an American painter. She was known for her work in miniature portraiture, landscape, and still life.
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Lynn Pasquerella
- Years
- 1958-.. (age 66)
- Occupations
- academic
- Biography
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Lynn C. Pasquerella is an American academic and the 14th president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities. Before she assumed this position, she was the 18th president of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, serving from 2010 to 2016. She was a professor of philosophy at the University of Rhode Island for 22 years before becoming URI's Associate Dean of the Graduate School. From 2006 to 2008 she was Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Rhode Island. She was the Provost of the University of Hartford from 2008 to 2010. She also served as the President of the Phi Beta Kappa Society from 2018 to 2021.
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Anna Adams Gordon
- Occupations
- children's writersongwriterwritersuffragette
- Biography
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Anna Adams Gordon was an American social reformer, songwriter, and, as national president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union when the Eighteenth Amendment was adopted, a major figure in the Temperance movement.
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Hannah Rosenthal
- Years
- 1951-.. (age 73)
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
-
Hannah Rosenthal is an American Democratic Party political official and Jewish non-profit executive who served as the U.S. Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism from 2009 until 2012 during the Obama administration.
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Libby Garvey
- Years
- 20th Century
- Biography
-
Libby Garvey is a municipal politician in Virginia, currently serving as a member of the Arlington County Board. She has previously served as the board's chair.
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Catherine McArdle Kelleher
- Occupations
- political scientistuniversity teacher
- Biography
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Catherine McArdle Kelleher was an American political scientist involved in national and international security policy. She was Senior Fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University and College Park Professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. Kelleher was the Director of the Aspen Institute in Berlin from 1998 to 2001 when she was appointed Professor of Strategy at the Naval War College (2001–2006). In the 1990s she was appointed Honorarprofessor at the Free University of Berlin, and she regularly taught at the Geneva Center for Security Policy in Switzerland for over a decade.
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Barbara Ketcham Wheaton
- Occupations
- writerhistorian
- Biography
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Barbara Ketcham Wheaton, born in Philadelphia in 1931, is a writer and food historian. Since 1990, she has been the honorary curator of the culinary collection at the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, one of the largest collections in the United States of books and manuscripts relating to cooking and the social history of food.
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Laura Briggs
- Years
- 1964-.. (age 60)
- Enrolled in Mount Holyoke College
- Graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- historian
- Biography
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Laura Briggs is a feminist critic and historian of reproductive politics and US empire. She works on transnational and transracial adoption and the relationship between race, sex, gender, and US imperialism. Her 2012 book Somebody's Children: The Politics of Transracial and Transnational Adoption won the James A. Rawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians for best book on the history of US race relations and has been featured on numerous college syllabi in the US and Canada. Briggs serves as professor and chair of the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
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Emma P. Carr
- Occupations
- chemistuniversity teacherscientist
- Biography
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Emma Perry Carr was an American spectroscopist and chemical educator. Her work on unsaturated hydrocarbons and absorption spectra earned her the inaugural Francis P. Garvan Medal (now the Garvan–Olin Medal) from the American Chemical Society in 1937.
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Sarah-Ann Lynch
- Occupations
- diplomat
- Biography
-
Sarah-Ann Lynch is the American ambassador who had served United States ambassador to Guyana. She was nominated by President Donald Trump on September 13, 2018 and presented her credentials on March 13, 2019 to President David Granger. Ambassador Lynch was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on January 2, and was sworn in on January 11, 2019.
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Louise Freeland Jenkins
- Occupations
- astronomer
- Biography
-
Louise Freeland Jenkins was an American astronomer who compiled a valuable catalogue of stars within 10 parsecs of the sun, as well as editing the 3rd edition of the Yale Bright Star Catalogue.
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Yoshi Kajiro
- Occupations
- educator
- Biography
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Yoshi Kajiro was a Japanese educator, the longtime principal of the Sanyō Girls' High School in Okayama.
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Ayumi Horie
- Years
- 1969-.. (age 55)
- Occupations
- ceramicist
- Biography
-
Ayumi Horie is a Portland, Maine-based studio potter. She is recognized for her unique aesthetic as well as for her pioneering use of digital marketing and social media within contemporary ceramics. She is curator of the popular Instagram feed Pots in Action and is a 2015 United States Artist Distinguished Fellow in Craft.
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Constance McLaughlin Green
- Occupations
- historian
- Biography
-
Constance Winsor Green, best known as Constance McLaughlin Green, was an American historian. She who won the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for History for Washington, Village and Capital, 1800–1878 (1962).
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Anne W. Armstrong
- Occupations
- novelistbusinesspersonwriter
- Biography
-
Anne Wetzell Armstrong was an American novelist and businesswoman, active primarily in the first half of the 20th century. She is best known for her novel, This Day and Time, an account of life in a rural Appalachian community. She was also a pioneering woman in business management, and was the first woman to lecture before the Harvard School of Business and Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business in the early 1920s.
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Caroline L. Ransom
- Occupations
- egyptologistuniversity teacherclassical archaeologist
- Biography
-
Caroline Ransom Williams was an Egyptologist and classical archaeologist. She was the first American woman to be professionally trained as an Egyptologist. She worked extensively with the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA) in New York and other major institutions with Egyptian collections, and published Studies in ancient furniture (1905), The Tomb of Perneb (1916), and The Decoration of the Tomb of Perneb: The Technique and the Color Conventions (1932), among others. During the Epigraphic Survey of the University of Chicago Oriental Institute's first season in Luxor, she helped to develop the "Chicago House method" for copying ancient Egyptian reliefs.
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Susan Tolman Mills
- Occupations
- missionaryeducator
- Biography
-
Susan Tolman Mills was the co-founder of Mills College (formerly the Young Ladies Seminary at Benicia, California).
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Sandy Rosenthal
- Occupations
- activist
- Biography
-
Sandy Rosenthal is an American civic activist and founder of Levees.Org, an organization created in October 2005 to educate the American public about the cause of the levee failures and catastrophic flooding in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
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Edna Dean Proctor
- Occupations
- writerpoet
- Biography
-
Edna Dean Proctor was an American writer and poet. Although she occasionally wrote short sketches and stories, poetry was her field. Proctor was characterized as a master of pathos. Her early environment left a vivid impression and was a moulding force in her writing.
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Clare Waterman
- Occupations
- biologistbiophysicist
- Biography
-
Clare M. Waterman is a cell biologist who has worked on understanding the role of the cytoskeleton in cell migration. Waterman is a Distinguished Investigator, Chief of the Laboratory of Cell and Tissue Morphodynamics, and Director of the Cell and Developmental Biology Center at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda MD, USA. Waterman has received several awards and honors, including the Sackler International prize in Biophysics, the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, and the Arthur S. Flemming Award for Public Service. In 2018, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. She currently serves on the editorial boards of eLife, Current Biology and Journal of Microscopy.
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Susan Mohl Powers
- Occupations
- sculptorprintmaker
- Biography
-
Susan Mohl Powers, born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, was a contemporary artist who sculpted in polygon and planar metal as well as sewn fabric, blending art and science to design sculptures and fabric-on-canvas paintings. The owner of Sailshade Studios in Fall River, Massachusetts, she also designed, trademarked and fabricated an energy-efficient window shade.
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Alice Gordon Gulick
- Occupations
- missionary
- Biography
-
Alice Gordon Gulick was an American missionary teacher in Spain.
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Alice Miles Woodruff
- Years
- Died in 1985
- Occupations
- virologist
- Biography
-
Alice Miles Woodruff, born Alice Lincoln Miles, was an American virologist. She developed a method for growing fowlpox outside of a live chicken alongside Ernest William Goodpasture. Her research greatly facilitated the rapid advancement in the study of viruses.
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Ada Howard
- Occupations
- academic
- Biography
-
Ada Lydia Howard was the first president of Wellesley College.
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Linda Melconian
- Born in
- United States
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
-
Linda J. Melconian is a former American state legislator who served as the first woman Majority Leader in the history of the Massachusetts Senate. A member of the Democratic Party, she represented the greater Springfield area as its State Senator from 1983-2005. In 2017 Melconian was invited by the U. S. House of Representatives Historian’s Office to participate in an oral interview and transcript as part of the Oral History Project commemorating the 100th anniversary of the first woman elected to Congress.
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Marcia Hofmann
- Occupations
- lawyer
- Biography
-
Marcia Clare Hofmann is an American attorney and US-UK Fulbright Scholar. Hofmann is known for her work as an advocate of electronic privacy and free expression, including defending individuals charged with high-profile computer crimes, such as Marcus Hutchins and Weev.
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Katheryn Curi
- Occupations
- sport cyclist
- Biography
-
Katheryn Curi is an American former professional racing cyclist who rode for the Webcor Builders Women's Professional Cycling Team, until the sponsor discontinued it before the 2011 season. She won the United States National Road Race Championships in Park City, Utah, in June 2005. In February 2008 she won the Geelong World Cup thereby claiming the UCI World Cup leader's jersey.
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Mei Hong
- Years
- 1970-.. (age 54)
- Enrolled in Mount Holyoke College
- In 1992 studied chemistry
- Occupations
- chemist
- Biography
-
Mei Hong is a Chinese-American biophysical chemist and professor of chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is known for her creative development and application of solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (ssNMR) spectroscopy to elucidate the structures and mechanisms of membrane proteins, plant cell walls, and amyloid proteins. She has received a number of recognitions for her work, including the American Chemical Society Nakanishi Prize in 2021, Günther Laukien Prize in 2014, the Protein Society Young Investigator award in 2012, and the American Chemical Society’s Pure Chemistry award in 2003.
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Marie Mercury Roth
- Occupations
- chemist
- Biography
-
Marie Mercury Roth was an American synthetic organic chemist. She was the first female Ph.D. candidate at the chemistry department of University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she worked with William Summer Johnson. She received her Doctorate of Philosophy in 1951 for the Application of the Favorskii rearrangement to the problem of angular methylation.
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Jill W. Smith
- Enrolled in Mount Holyoke College
- Graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- philanthropist
- Biography
-
Jill W. Smith is a philanthropist with a longstanding interest in advancing women's and girls’ education. She is the former Chair of the Jewish Foundation for Education of Women (JFEW), a 130-year-old institution providing educational scholarships to women in need of all religions and ethnicities. Smith has held the position since 2010 and has served as an active board member of JFEW since 1992.
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Vera Katharine Charles
- Enrolled in Mount Holyoke College
- Graduated with Bachelor of Arts
- Occupations
- mycologistbotanical collectorbotanist
- Biography
-
Vera Katherine Charles was an American mycologist. She was one of the first women to be appointed to professional positions within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Charles coauthored several articles on mushrooms while working for the USDA.
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Ellen Levy
- Born in
- United States
- Occupations
- installation artistartistcurator
- Biography
-
Ellen K. Levy is an American multimedia artist and scholar known for exploring art, science and technology interrelationships since the early 1980s. Levy works to highlight their importance through exhibitions, educational programs, publications and curatorial opportunities; often through collaborations with scientists including NASA, some in conjunction with Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology. She is a past president of the College Art Association and has published widely on art and complex systems.
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Mildred Sanderson
- Enrolled in Mount Holyoke College
- Graduated with Licentiate
- Occupations
- mathematician
- Biography
-
Mildred Leonora Sanderson was an American mathematician, best known for her mathematical theorem concerning modular invariants.
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Grace Knapp
- Occupations
- missionary
- Biography
-
Grace H. Knapp was an American Christian missionary and teacher who served in the Ottoman Empire. During her time as a missionary, Knapp was a witness to the Armenian genocide. During the Armenian genocide, Knapp was stationed in Van and eventually described the events in the region in two published books describing her experiences. The first book, The Mission at Van in Turkey in War Time, describes in detail the massacres of Armenians by Turkish soldiers during the Van Resistance. Her second book, The Tragedy of Bitlis, relates the narratives of two nurses who witnessed massacres of Armenians in Bitlis. Her recounts of Bitlis are one of the few written accounts of massacres in that area.
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Jemila Abdulai
- Years
- 1985-.. (age 39)
- Enrolled in Mount Holyoke College
- Graduated with Bachelor of Arts in French studies and economics
- Occupations
- economistwriterblogger
- Biography
-
Jemila Wumpini Abdulai is a Ghanaian blogger, writer and digital marketer. In 2007, she founded Circumspecte.com, a lifestyle blog dedicated to Africans. Her blog was a recipient of the African Blogger Awards in 2016.
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Nancy M. Hill
- Occupations
- obstetricianphysician
- Biography
-
Nancy Maria Hill was an American Civil War nurse who later became one of the first women physicians in the United States. She specialized in obstetrics and founded what is now called Hillcrest Family Services, an organization providing support to single mothers and their children in Dubuque, Iowa.
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Christian Kay
- Years
- 1940-2016 (aged 76)
- Occupations
- academic
- Biography
-
Christian Janet Kay was Emeritus Professor of English Language and Honorary Professorial Research Fellow in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Glasgow. She was an editor, with her mentor Michael Samuels, of the world's largest and first historical thesaurus, the Historical Thesaurus of English, first published in 2009 as the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary (HTOED), a project to which she dedicated 40 years (1969 to 2009).
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Marcia Keith
- Occupations
- physicist
- Biography
-
Marcia Anna Keith was a physicist, teacher of physics to women, and a charter member of the American Physical Society since its founding in 1899.
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Karen Middleton
- Years
- 1966-.. (age 58)
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
-
Karen Middleton is an American politician who served as a member of the Colorado House of Representatives from 2004 to 2008 and 2008 to 2011.
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Janet L. Mitchell
- Years
- 1950-.. (age 74)
- Occupations
- obstetricianphysician
- Biography
-
Janet L. Mitchell was an American physician known for her advances in perinatal HIV/AIDS treatment. During the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. Mitchell developed protocols for health treatment of pregnant women who were HIV positive or at risk for developing AIDS. She advocated against mandatory testing and testifying before Congress, she advocated in favor of an inclusive approach to health care and social services. One of her innovations derived from a study that saw a 70% decrease in HIV transmission to babies when AZT was administered to their mothers during the pregnancy.
