Download the inspiring poster series for women in STEM for your home, classroom, or office today.
September 7, 2018
minute read time
A Hollywood star. An egg saleswoman. A corn expert. A descendant of Japanese-Americans. A suffragist.
These are the backgrounds of women who went on to break barriers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and are featured in the Energy Department’s latest set of the classroom poster series.
To inspire students to learn about the scientific achievements of these remarkable women and how STEM education helped them purse their dreams, these posters share the images and stories on five groundbreaking women. Download and print the posters now on any home or office printer for use in classrooms or after-school programs.
This second series features:
- Hedy Lamarr (1914 – 2000)
Hedy patented a technology enabling radio signals to jump frequencies, which makes mobile phone, wifi, and military communications possible. She was one of the most popular actresses of her day and starred in 30 Hollywood films during the 1930s and 1940s. Hedy ended her (unhappy) marriage to a Nazi Arms dealer, moved to America, and offered her invention to the U.S. Navy to support the war effort.
- Evelyn Boyd Granville (1924 – )
Evelyn was the second African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics and helped in America’s early space missions like the Apollo program. Luckily for her students, Evelyn loves teaching in STEM fields and worked at universities, elementary schools, and wrote a text book. She was born and raised in Washington, D.C., and lived in Tennessee, California, Connecticut, and Texas, where she sold chicken eggs with her husband.
- Barbara McClintock (1902 – 1992)
At age 81, Barbara became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology for Medicine as result of her own work (the other women who previously won this category were on teams with men). She discovered genetic transposition, when genes change positions on chromosomes, by studying corn for 26 years. She’s commemorated on U.S. and Swedish postage stamps, and has buildings named after her at Cornell University and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. There’s also a street named after her in Berlin.
- Ruby Hirose (1904 – 1960)
Ruby was a biochemist and biologist whose research helped lead to vaccines against polio and infantile paralysis. Her father, brother, and sister were sent to internment camps during World War II but she was living in a different state and was spared a similar fate. Ruby taught microbiology and did cancer research at universities in Ohio and Indiana She also researched serums and antitoxins at William S. Merrell Laboratories.
- Nora Stanton Blatch Barney (1883 – 1971)
Nora was the first woman to get a degree in civil engineering in the U.S. and a fighter for gender equality – just like her grandmother, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She even solved a key problem in hydrodynamics while doing her thesis research at Cornell. Nora was a fighter - she sued the American Society of Civil Engineers after they only allowed her to be a junior member. She was the first woman ever admitted to the organization.
As we noted in the roll-out of the first set of our Women in STEM classroom poster series, one of the most powerful ways for a young woman to pursue STEM is to have someone encourage her to do so. STEM professionals visiting classrooms and events, engaging stories, and visual depictions of women in STEM show girls the possibilities available to them, and shatter stereotypes that only boys and men can make an impact in these fields.
View the first set of posters here, and keep an eye out for the next set featuring women from the Manhattan Project on our website.
For more information on the Department of Energy’s STEM resources like events, classes, open houses, and student competitions, visit www.energy.gov/STEMRising.
AnneMarie Horowitz
AnneMarie Horowitz is the Chief of Staff for the Arctic Energy Office. She joined the Arctic Energy Office in May 2023, and previously served as the Acting Communications Director until September 2023. AnneMarie has been with the Energy Department since 2010, and was previously on the digital team of the Office of Public Affairs, where she managed digital projects and internal employee communications efforts. AnneMarie was the Digital Communications Manager from March 2023 - September 2023 for the Department of Health and Human Affairs' Public Education Campaign, We Can Do This, to share information about the COVID vaccine.
AnneMarie founded two active employee resource groups at the Department of Energy: POWER (Professional Opportunities for Women in Energy Realized) and the Emerging Professionals Group. From 2015 - 2017 she served as the Special Advisor on workforce issues for Deputy Secretary of Energy Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall. She has also previously worked in the Under Secretary for Management and Performance and the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity.
AnneMarie created the STEM Rising: Women @ Energy series, featuring profiles of women from the agency who work in STEM careers. She was critical to establishing the Equality in Energy Transitions Initiative, a dual-hatted effort of the International Energy Agency and the Clean Energy Ministerial to advance the transition to a clean energy economy by engaging more women in clean energy, and is involved with the U.S. C3E Initiative as an award reviewer and communication. During the Obama Administration she was a DOE designee to the White House Council on Women and Girls. AnneMarie was a U.S. delegate to the APEC Women in the Economy Forum in 2014 in Beijing, China.
AnneMarie has a BA in Political Science from the University of Portland and a Masters of Government from Johns Hopkins University. She resides in Philadelphia.