Quiz: Fabulous Female Scientists

Leading French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire wrote of his mistress du Châtelet, "She has a genius that is rare/ Worthy of Newton, I do swear."

Around 415, Hypatia died when a radical Christian mob, which had been systematically burning down secular libraries and learning centers around Alexandria, beat her to death with roofing tiles and burned her body.

According to a study from the U.S. Commerce Department, women make up 48 percent of the U.S. workforce as of 2009 but claim only 24 percent of jobs in STEM fields.

The 1962 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for discovering DNA's double helix structure went to Watson, Crick and Wilkins, but they may not have made the breakthrough without Rosalind Franklin's X-ray diffraction photos of DNA strands.

In 1939, Meitner and her nephew and lab partner Otto Frisch identified and named the process of nuclear fission, which would be the key to developing the atomic bomb.

Although Meitner first distinguished nuclear fission, her longtime research partner Otto Hahn took home the Nobel Prize in chemistry for it in 1944.

The theoretical physicist concentrated primarily on electron energy, electrical charges and polarization, specifically the polaronic aspects of electrons in two-dimensional systems.

In 1995, President Clinton appointed Jackson to chair the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, making her the first woman to hold the position.

Levi-Montalcini received a Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1986 for discovering nerve growth factor, the key protein that stimulates neural development in the brain.

Levi-Montalcini was 77 years old when she accepted her Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1986.

Radioactivity expert Marie Curie won her first Nobel in 1903 and nabbed another in 1911.

Also known as Lady Lovelace, Ada Byron developed a numerical calculation program in 1843, making her history's first computer programmer.

When Jane Goodall decided to study chimpanzees in Tanzania at the age of 23, she probably didn't anticipate spending the next 45 years observing their social and familial behavior.

The only four women to win a Nobel Prize in chemistry are Marie Curie, Irène Joliot-Curie, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin and Ada E. Yonath.

Maria Goeppert Mayer took home the Nobel Prize in physics in 1963, the second -- and last, as of 2011 -- time a woman claimed it.

When Bell accidentally discovered radio signals in outer space, she first theorized that they were coming from "little green men."

The pair discovered telomeres, which are protective shields on the end of chromosomes that also determine how much a cell can divide and proliferate.

Although she's one of the most famous female scientists in history, primatologist Jane Goodall has never won a Nobel Prize.

Shockley was the first black woman to earn a Ph.D. in pharmacy, and Jemison was the first black female astronaut. Jackson was the first black woman to earn a Ph.D. from MIT, where she studied elementary particle theory.

According to data from the National Science Foundation, female college students in the U.S. are least likely to pursue engineering. Psychology and medicine are the two most popular science tracks for women.