The names of Aspasia of Miletus, Theanus, Hildegard of Bingen, Marie Anne Pierrete Paulze, Ada Byron, Lise Meitner or Hedy Lamarr are not common in history textbooks, much less in the textbooks used by high school students. However, all these women stand out for having contributed significantly to the development of knowledge. They are scientists, “unjustly forgotten”, whose biographies are now reviewed by Adela Muñoz Páez in the journal Redes para la ciencia. The Professor of the Department of Inorganic Chemistry, member of the Institute of Materials Science of Seville, has proposed with these reports to disseminate the profiles of these women scientists, with the aim of “offering positive and attractive models for high school students” and for the general public.
In her first works published in Redes, Adela Muñoz has focused on the biographies of pioneering women such as Hedy Lamarr, a successful Hollywood actress who patented an information transmission system (the starting point for the wireless communications so widely used today); or Ada Byron, daughter of the poet Lord Byron, who invented a system of punched cards to communicate with a machine. In all these cases, a pattern of dedication and passion for science is repeated, which goes beyond the numerous obstacles that these women scientists encountered because they were women.
