On the heels of Black History Month comes Women’s History Month! Women’s History Month is celebrated every March to honor the achievements of women throughout every stage of American history. This is a time to reflect on how far women have come and to acknowledge the progress that still needs to be made.
Women’s History Month is meant to celebrate the many contributions women have made to the advancement of humanity – from science and the arts to politics and activism.
It’s a great time to reflect on the talent women have brought to the information technology industry. Women are vastly underrepresented in this field, and their contributions often go unnoticed. However, despite the comparatively small number of women in cyber security, there have been some major improvements made by women in this niche field of IT.
We want to spotlight some of the most influential women in cyber security and the sciences overall and highlight how these women have been and still are making a big impact on these industries.
March is Women’s History Month
Women’s History Month was first informally observed in California as “Women’s History Week” in March of 1978, to coincide with International Women’s Day. It took nine years of hard work, but finally, in March of 1987, Congress officially declared March to be National Women’s History Month. And it’s been going strong ever since!
Women Leaders
Let’s take a look at some of the most influential women in cyber security today:
Jen Easterly
Jen Easterly is the current director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in the United States. She was previously the head of cyber security at Morgan Stanley.
An army veteran, Easterly has been working in security for almost 20 years and has made a huge impact in both the private and public sectors.
In her current role, she is responsible for cyber security policy and strategy for the U.S. government. Under her leadership, the agency has made great strides in protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure from cyber threats.
Easterly is a strong advocate for women in cyber security and has been working to increase the number of women in the field. She is a role model for women looking to get into the cyber security field and is proof that women currently in this industry can reach the highest echelons of leadership.
Easterly is just one of many women leaders in cyber security. Others include:
Rinki Sethi
Rinki Sethi is the former CISO of Twitter and current Vice President and CISO of Bill.com. She has been a well-known and highly-respected figure in the cyber security industry with over 15 years of experience – a large portion of those years spent in high-ranking leadership roles.
As a former board member of Women in CyberSecurity (WiCys), Sethi is another vocal advocate for women in cyber security. She has spoken about the need for more women in the field and has worked to mentor other women looking to get into the industry.
The fact that Sethi was appointed CISO of one of the world’s largest and most popular social media platforms right after they experienced a major security breach involving a Bitcoin scam speaks volumes as to how much her expertise is trusted in the industry. If you’re looking for someone to model your cyber security career path after, Sethi would be a great choice!
Meredith Harper
Another notable CISO and Vice President is Meredith Harper of the Fortune 500 Eli Lilly and Company. Harper’s impressive 20 years of cyber security experience is supplemented by her expertise in healthcare and law.
She holds a Master of Jurisprudence in Health Law and has earned several certifications in healthcare compliance and privacy. With this rare combination of knowledge, it makes sense that Harper was chosen to helm the information security team of one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.
Harper is also a big proponent of encouraging underrepresented people – specifically women and people of color – to enter the cyber security field. She is a board member of several organizations and seems committed to bringing her perspective on the need for more diversity in the tech industry to these roles.
If for some reason you ever harbored any doubt that being a woman and African American would cause too many barriers to be put in your way to becoming a top cyber security leader at a large, respected organization, then look to Meredith Harper as an example that it can be done and then some!
Famous Historical Women: Information Technology
While it may seem like women have only recently begun to be recognized as a significant force in the information technology field, there have always been female pioneers who have made major contributions to the industry. Here are just a couple of the most famous historical women in information technology:
Ada Lovelace
Ada Lovelace is widely considered to be the first computer programmer. She was born in 1815 in England to the famous poet Lord Byron and his wife Anne Isabella Milbanke. Lovelace was educated privately, with a focus on mathematics and science.
In 1833, she met Charles Babbage, who is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer. Babbage showed her his plans for the machine, which he called the Analytical Engine. Lovelace was fascinated by the machine and began to work on ways to program it to perform various tasks.
In 1842, she translated and extensively annotated an article about the Analytical Engine, which included a description of how it could be used to compute Bernoulli numbers. This work is considered to be the first instance of computer programming.
Lovelace died in 1852 at the relatively young age of 36, but her legacy has been memorialized with a programming language named after her and a commemorative day in October. The work she did during her short life laid the foundation for future generations of computer programmers.
Grace Hopper
Grace Hopper was an American mathematician and computer scientist who made significant contributions to the field of data processing. She was born in 1906 and earned her Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale University in 1934.
During World War II, Hopper worked for the U.S. Navy on a project to develop a computer that could track the trajectory of naval guns. This experience led her to develop one of the first compiler tools, which translated written instructions into machine code that could be understood by computers.
She also helped develop the COBOL programming language, which was designed to be more user-friendly than earlier languages and is still in use today as there are mainframe computers out there in the wild!
She retired from the Navy at the age of 79 with the esteemed rank of Rear Admiral. Despite her passing in 1992 at the age of 85, she is commemorated by the annual Grace Hopper Celebration and a Presidential Medal of Freedom – the highest civilian honor.
These are just a couple of the many famous historical women whose influence has shaped the information technology field. Their legacies will live on in the generations of tech-loving women who have come after them.
Women in Science
Though we’ve focused primarily on women in cyber security and information technology in general, we’d be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge women who have made advances in formal and applied sciences. Let’s explore some of the most innovative women in science throughout history:
Alice Ball
Alice Ball was an American chemist who, in the early 1900s, developed the first truly effective treatment for leprosy.
Born in 1892, she lived a relatively short life – only until the age of 24. But during her brief time in our world, she made a major impact on the field of medicine. She also accomplished becoming the University of Hawaii’s first female chemistry instructor.
Her work developing a treatment for leprosy – called the “Ball Method” – was so effective that it remained in use for decades. It wasn’t until the 1940s that a new treatment was developed that could surpass Ball’s work.
Though she did not live to see the recognition her work received, today she is remembered as a pioneer in the field of medicine, and her work continues to inspire new generations of medical professionals.
Chien-Shiung Wu
Women have been imparting remarkable discoveries to the sciences for centuries, but their accomplishments are often overshadowed by their male counterparts. Such was the case with Chien-Shiung Wu.
Wu, born in 1912 in China, was a physicist who made substantial contributions to the fields of nuclear physics and radioactivity. She is best known for her work on the Wu experiment, which disproved the long-held theory of conservation of parity. This theory stated that physical laws were the same for all observers, regardless of their orientation or position.
Wu’s work demonstrated that this was not the case. Though her discovery was revolutionary, she was not awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for her work. This honor instead went to her male peers Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang.
Two decades later she was the inaugural winner of the Wolf Prize in Physics – an honor that finally acknowledged to everyone her Nobel Prize-deserving discovery.
It’s no wonder that she’s been dubbed the ‘First Lady of Physics’ as she accomplished several firsts throughout her prestigious career:
- She was the first-ever female tenured physics professor at a university.
- She’s the first woman faculty member of Princeton University’s physics department.
- She was Columbia University’s first woman physics professor.
- She became the American Physical Society’s first woman president.
She passed away in 1997 at 87 years old, but – alongside several awards – recognition of her legacy of groundbreaking work in the field of physics was honored in 2021 with a United States Postal Service commemorative stamp.
Katherine Johnson
Katherine Johnson was an American mathematician who worked for NASA during the early years of the space program. She was born in 1918 and earned degrees in mathematics and French from West Virginia State College at an age when most Americans are just entering college – 18 years old!
In 1953, she began working at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which would later become NASA. Johnson’s main task was to calculate the trajectories of rockets and spacecraft.
She played a vital role in the Mercury and Apollo programs, as well as the Space Shuttle program. She also was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2015.
Johnson’s story was popularized in the 2016 film Hidden Figures, which tells the story of a group of African American women who worked at NASA during the early years of the space program. The film highlights the struggles and challenges these women faced in a time when racial segregation was still prevalent in the United States.
Despite the obstacles she faced, Johnson persevered and made significant contributions to the field of space exploration. She is an inspiration to women of all ages and backgrounds who are interested in studying or pursuing a career in STEM fields.
Sally Ride
Sally Ride was an American astronaut who made history when she became the first American woman to travel to space.
Ride, born in 1951 in California, was a gifted student, excelling in both academics and her sport of choice – tennis. She went on to earn degrees in physics and English from Stanford University before being selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in 1978.
Ride made her historic space flight aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983. She continued to work with NASA until 1987, when she left to pursue a career as a science educator.
Ride died in 2012, but her legacy as a trailblazer for women in science endures. She was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and her life story continues to inspire young girls and women everywhere to reach for the stars in STEM.
All of the women featured above made great strides in the world of science, despite any obstacles they faced. They have inspired other women to pursue careers in cyber security, information technology, and the sciences, and their work has helped to change the way we view women and their capabilities in tech. We celebrate their accomplishments during Women’s History Month, and we’ll remember their legacies throughout the rest of the year, long after March is gone.
Here’s a quick explanation video on Women’s History Month from Good Morning America’s YouTube channel:
Here’s a quick summary FAQ on Women’s History Month:
What is Women’s Month Celebration?
Women’s History Month is celebrated annually in March to recognize and honor women’s contributions to society and history, to culture and customs. The month-long celebration originated in the United States, but it is now celebrated in countries all over the world.
Why is women’s month in March?
The first informal ‘Women’s History Week’ was celebrated in California in March of 1978. In March of 1982, ‘Women’s History Week’ was celebrated nationally after Pub. L. 97-28 was passed. In 1987, Pub. L. 100-9 declared the entire month of March to be Women’s History Month, and we’ve been celebrating each March ever since!
Why do we celebrate national women’s month?
Women like Grace Hopper, Katherine Johnson, Chien-Shiung Wu, and Sally Ride are why we celebrate Women’s History Month. They exhibited brilliance, resilience, and ingenuity – which are all qualities that constitute the American spirit and are traits that are valued the world over.
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