This is a list of notable women scientists active in the 21st century.

Albania

• Mimoza Hafizi (born 1962), Albanian physicist
• Laura Mersini-Houghton, cosmology and theoretical physicist
• Afërdita Veveçka Priftaj (1948–2017), Albanian physicist^[1]

Algeria

• Yasmine Amhis (born 1982), French-Algerian physicist

Argentina

• Sonia Álvarez Leguizamón (born 1954), urban anthropologist studying poverty
• Zulma Brandoni de Gasparini (born 1944), Argentine paleontologist and zoologist
• Constanza Ceruti (born 1973), Argentine archaeologist and anthropologist
• Rachel Chan (graduated 1988), led group of research scientists to create more drought resistant seed in Argentina
• Perla Fuscaldo (born 1941), Argentine egyptologist

Armenia

• Vandika Ervandovna Avetisyan (born 1928), botanist and mycologist; major contributor to knowledge of the flora of her native Armenia
• Ninet Sinaii, epidemiologist

Australia

• Anne Astin (graduated 1976), biochemist active in dairy development
• Katherine Belov (born 1973), Australian geneticist, Tasmanian devil cancer researcher
• Suzanne Cory (born 1942), Australian molecular biologist
• Jean Finnegan, Australian scientist, researches flowering processes and epigenetic regulation in plants
• Gisela Kaplan, ornithologist and primatologist noted for her research in animal cognition, communication and vocal behaviour of primates and specifically native Australian birds
• Naomi McClure-Griffiths (born 1975), American-Australian astrophysicist. Discovered a new arm of the Milky Way galaxy
• Jessica Melbourne-Thomas (born 1981), marine ecologist and ecosystem modeller with the Australian Antarctic Division
• Sue O'Connor Australian archaeologist, discovered the world's oldest fish hooks which were found in an adult female's grave
• Lesley J Rogers (born 1943), Australian ethologist and neuroscientist, expert in brain laterality
• Moninya Roughan (born 1974), physical oceanographer, expert in the dynamics and warming of the East Australian Current
• Una M. Ryan (born 1966), patented DNA test identifying protozoan parasite Cryptosporidium
• Helen Alma Newton Turner (1908–1995), geneticist and statistician, expert on sheep genetics
• Carden Wallace (fl. 1970–), marine biologist and museum director, expert on corals
• Leonie Walsh, first Lead Scientist of Victoria
• Rachel Webster (born 1951), astrophysicist, educator
• Mary E. White (1926–2018), paleobotanist

Austria

• Elisabeth Binder (graduated 1995), Austrian neuroscientist specializing in anxiety disorders
• Claire F. Gmachl (born 1967), Austrian-born American electrical engineer, educator
• Elisabeth Huber-Sannwald, Austrian researcher specializing in ecosystem ecology
• Lisa Kaltenegger (born 1977), Austrian astronomer, educator
• Christine Mannhalter (born 1948), molecular biologist
• Elisabeth Ruttkay (1926–2009), Austrian Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeologist
• Eva Schönbeck-Temesy (1930–2011), Hungarian-born Austrian botanist

Barbados

• Velma Scantlebury (born 1955), first woman of African descent to become a transplant surgeon in the U.S.

Belgium

• Ingrid Daubechies (born 1954), Belgian physicist and mathematician
• Véronique Dehant (born 1959), geodesist and geophysicist
• Véronique Gouverneur (born 1964), chemist, educator, specializing in organic fluorine compounds
• Yaël Nazé (born 1976), Belgian astrophysicist specializing in massive stars

Bolivia

• Sonia Alconini (born 1965), Bolivian archaeologist of the Formative Period of the Lake Titicaca basin
• Kathrin Barboza Marquez (born 1983), Bolivian biologist specializing in bat research

Brazil

• Mariza Corrêa (1945–2016), anthropologist, sociologist
• Livia Eberlin analytical chemist, co-inventor of the MassSpec pen
• Fátima Ferreira (born 1959), biologist, physician, educator, now vice-rector at the University of Salzburg specializing in molecular allergology
• Dorath Pinto Uchôa (1947–2014), archaeologist
• Lúcia Mendonça Previato (born 1949), biologist
• Alba Zaluar (1942–2019), anthropologist specializing in urban anthropology
• Mayana Zatz (born 1947), molecular biologist and geneticist

Canada

• Karen Bailey, plant pathology
• Karen Beauchemin (born 1956), ruminant nutrition research
• Roberta Bondar (born 1945), neurologist, astronaut, educator
• Kirsten Bos, physical anthropologist, molecular paleopathologist
• Lindsay Cahill, chemist
• Juliet Daniel (fl. from 2001), focus on cancer biology
• Martine Dorais, plant physiology, organic horticulture
• Laura Ferrarese, astronomer
• Roberta Gilchrist (born 1965), Canadian archaeologist specializing in medieval Britain
• Sheena Josselyn, Canadian neuroscientist
• Francesca M. Kerton, chemist
• Julia Levy (born 1934), microbiologist, immunologist, entrepreneur
• Mary MacArthur (1904–1959), botanist, cytologist
• Deborah Martin-Downs, aquatic biologist, ecologist
• Diane Massam, linguist
• Elizabeth Pattey, agricultural meteorologist
• Heather Pringle, writer on archaeology
• Kathleen I. Pritchard, oncologist, breast cancer researcher and noted as one of Reuter's most cited scientists
• Line Rochefort, Canadian ecologist
• Francine Saillant (born 1953), anthropologist, writer
• Sandra Schmid (born 1958), cell biologist
• Karen Schwartzkopf-Genswein, animal ethologist
• Sara Seager (born 1971), Canadian-American astronomer and planetary scientist
• Felicitas Svejda (1920–2016), horticulturalist
• Sandra Witelson, neuroscientist
• Rachel Zimmerman (born 1972), Canadian-born space scientist

Chile

• Ligia Gargallo, chemist, educator
• Paula Jofré (born 1982), astronomer and astrophysicist
• María Teresa Ruiz, (born 1946) astronomer
• Veronica Vallejos, marine biologist and Antarctic researcher
• Ana Vásquez-Bronfman (1931–2009), Chilean-French sociologist

China

• Margaret Chan (born 1947), Chinese (Hong Kong), health specialist, director-general of the World Health Organization
• Zeng Rong, biochemist specializing in proteins
• Jian Xu, CTO at IBM, software engineer
• Zhao Yufen (born 1948), chemical engineer
• Qian Zhengying (1923–2022), Chinese hydrologist and politician
• Lü Zhi (born 1965), giant panda expert and conservationist
• Tu Youyou (born 1930), Chinese pharmaceutical chemist and malariologist

Colombia

• Diana Marcela Bolaños Rodriguez (born 1981), marine biologist studying flat worms and stem cell regeneration
• Ana Maria Rey (born 1976/1977), theoretical physicist
• María del Pilar Jiménez Alzate, medical biological researcher

Croatia

• Snježana Kordić (born 1964), linguist
• Nina Marković, physicist and professor

Cuba

• Herminia Ibarra, economist

Czech Republic

• Eva Syková (born 1944), neuroscientist researching spinal cord injury

Denmark

• Anja Cetti Andersen (born 1965), astronomer, astrophysicist
• Lene Hau (born 1959), physicist
• Signe Normand (born 1979), biologist, ecologist, educator

Dominican Republic

• Idelisa Bonnelly (1931–2022), marine biologist who created first sanctuary in the North Atlantic for humpback whales
• Aída Mencía Ripley, clinical psychologist

Finland

• Tuija I. Pulkkinen (born 1962), Finnish space scientist

France

• Anne Dejean-Assémat (born 1957), biologist researching liver cancer
• Hélène Bergès (born 1966), director of the Plant Genomic Resources Center (CNRGV), plant geneticist
• Rut Carballido Lopez, Spanish-born microbiologist and research director in Paris
• Merieme Chadid (born 1969), Astronomer, Explorer and Astrophysicist
• Mireille Bousquet-Mélou (born 1967), mathematician
• Catherine Feuillet (born 1965), French molecular biologist who was the first scientist to map the wheat chromosome 3B
• Françoise Gasse (1942–2014), paleobiologist specializing in lacustrine sediments
• Laurence Lanfumey (born 1954), French neuroscientist
• Dominique Langevin (born 1947), physical chemist
• Claudine Rinner (born 1965), amateur astronomer
• Martine Tabeaud (born in 1951) French geographer, specialist in climatology
• Fabiola Terzi (born 1961), physician-scientist
• Aurore Avarguès-Weber (born 1983), cognitive neuroscientist

Germany

• Andrea Ablasser (born 1983), German immunologist working in Switzerland
• Katrin Amunts (born 1962), prominent neuroscientist involved in brain mapping
• Ulrike Beisiegel (born 1952), German biochemist, researcher of liver fats and first female president of the University of Göttingen
• Sibylle Günter (born 1964), theoretical physicist researching tokamak plasmas
• Hanna von Hoerner (1942–2014), astrophysicist
• Eva-Maria Neher (born 1950), German biochemist, microbiologist
• Nina Papavasiliou, immunologist
• Elisabeth Piirainen (1943–2017), philologist
• Ilme Schlichting (born 1960), biophysicist
• Brigitte Voit (born 1963), chemist

Greece

• Lydia Kravraki, computer scientist, professor at Rice

Guadeloupe

• Dany Bébel-Gisler (1935–2003), Guadeloupean sociolinguist and ethnographer

Hungary

• Katalin Balázsi (born 1978), material scientist researching nanomaterials and ceramics

India

• Joyanti Chutia (born 1948), work spans both centuries, focusing on physics
• Seetha Coleman-Kammula (born 1950), Indian chemist and plastics designer, turned environmentalist
• Paramjit Khurana (born 1956), Indian biologist specializing in plant biotechnology
• Shobhana Narasimhan (graduated 1983), Indian physicist, professor of theoretical sciences in Bangalore
• Priyamvada Natarajan (graduated 1993), Indian-born American astronomer, educator
• Manju Ray (1947–2021), Indian biochemist developing anticancer drugs
• Seema Bhatnagar (born 1971), Indian scientist, working in the field of anticancer drug discovery

Indonesia

• Adi Utarini (born 1965), Indonesian public health researcher who works on disease control of dengue fever
• Elizabeth A. Widjaja (born 1951), Indonesian researcher of bamboo taxonomy
• Karlina Leksono Supelli (born 1958), Indonesian philosopher and astronomer
• Pratiwi Sudarmono (born 1952), Indonesian professor of microbiology at the University of Indonesia
• Rose Amal (born 1965), Indonesian-Australian chemical engineer
• Soejatmi Dransfield (born 1939), Indonesia-born British plant taxonomist specializing in bamboos
• Tri Mumpuni (born 1964), Indonesian independent researcher, social entrepreneur, philanthropist, social activist, and micro-hydropower inventor

Iran

• Maryam Mirzakhani (1977–2017), Iranian-American mathematician and a professor of mathematics at Stanford University
• Saba Valadkhan (born 1974), Tehran Education:Columbia University an Iranian American biomedical scientist, and an Assistant Professor and RNA researcher at Case Western Reserve University
• Ālenush Teriān (1920–2011), Iranian-Armenian astronomer and physicist and is called 'Mother of Modern Iranian Astronomy'
• Mina J. Bissell, Iranian-American biologist known for her research on breast cancer
• Pardis C. Sabeti (born 1975), Iranian-American computational biologist, medical geneticist and evolutionary geneticist
• Roxana Moslehi, genetic epidemiologist, researching cancer and cancer precursors
• Anousheh Ansari (born 1966), Iranian-American engineer and co-founder and chairwoman of Prodea Systems
• Reihaneh Safavi-Naini, AITF Strategic Chair in Information Security at the University of Calgary, Canada

Iraq

• Lihadh Al-Gazali (born 1950), geneticist, established a registry for congenital disorders in the United Arab Emirates

Israel

• Rachel Mamlok-Naaman, Israeli chemist
• Osnat Penn (born 1981), Israeli computational biologist
• Ada Yonath (born 1939), Israeli crystallographer
• Idit Zehavi (born 1969), Israeli astrophysicist

Italy

• Maria Abbracchio (born 1956), Italian pharmacologist who works with purinergic receptors and identified GPR17; on Reuter's most cited list since 2006
• Daria Guidetti (born 1978), astrophysicist with the INAF
• Chiara Nappi (born 1951), Italian particle physicist active in the US
• Elisa Oricchio (born 1979), discovered that the protein EphA7 activates the tumor suppressor gene for patients with follicular lymphoma

Latvia

• Emīlija Gudriniece (1920–2004), Latvian chemist and academic

Luxembourg

• Christiane Linster (born 1962), behavioral neuroscientist

Madagascar

• Julie Hanta Razafimanahaka, conservation biologist

Morocco

• Merieme Chadid (born 1969), astronomer, explorer, and astrophysicist
• Rajaâ Cherkaoui El Moursli (born 1954), known for her contribution to the proof of existence for the Higgs Boson

Netherlands

• Corinne Hofman (born 1959), Dutch archaeologist

New Zealand

• Margaret Brimble (born 1961), chemist, researching shellfish toxins
• Gillian Wratt (born 1954), botanist and Antarctic researcher

Nigeria

• Taiwo Olayemi Elufioye, pharmacologist
• Francisca Oboh Ikuenobe (born 1962), geologist specializing in palynology and sedimentology
• Eucharia Oluchi Nwaichi, environmental biochemist, Oréal-Unesco award in 2013
• Grace Oladunni Taylor (born 1937), Nigerian chemist, 2nd woman inducted into the Nigerian Academy of Science
• Omowunmi Sadik (born 1964), chemist, educator
• Margaret Adebisi Sowunmi (born 1939), botanist and environmental archaeologist
• Felicity Okpete Ovai (born 1961), engineer, civil servant, politician

Norway

• Tine Jensen (born 1957), psychologist specializing in psychological trauma

Pakistan

• Sara Gill, Pakistani transgender activist and physician

Peru

• Virginia Vargas (born 1945), sociologist, writer

Portugal

• Mónica Bettencourt-Dias (born 1974), biochemist and microbiologist
• Maria Manuel Mota (born 1971), malariologist and executive director of the Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Lisbon

Russia

• Eugenia Kumacheva, Russian-born chemist, since 1995 teaching in Canada

Saudi Arabia

• Suhad Bahajri (graduated 1975), chemist
• Samira Islam (active since 1971), pharmacologist, educator

Serbia

• Nataša Pavlović (graduated 1996), mathematician

Singapore

• Gloria Lim (born 1930), Singaporean mycologist, first woman Dean of the University of Singapore
• Lisa Ng, virologist

South Africa

• Renée Hložek (born 1983), cosmologist and professor of physics
• Valerie Mizrahi (born 1958), molecular biologist
• Tebello Nyokong (born 1951), South African chemist and cancer researcher
• Jennifer Thomson (born 1947), microbiologist

Spain

• Margarita Salas (1938–2019), biochemist, author
• Cari Borrás, medical physicist
• Mercedes Fernández-Martorell (born 1948), anthropologist, educator
• María José García Borge (born 1956), nuclear physicist
• Carme Torras (born 1956), computer scientist specialising in robotics
• Carmen Vela (born 1955), microbiologist, ministerial official, writer

South Korea

• Ahn In-Young, Antarctic researcher and benthic ecologist
• Chang Kyongae, (born 1946), astrophysicist
• Cho Yoon-kyoung, interdisciplinary researcher
• Choi Sookyung, particle physicist
• Chung Kwang Hwa (born 1948), physicist and president of the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, Korea Basic Science Institute, and Korean Vacuum Society
• Jun Mikyoung, statistician
• Kim Eun-Ah (born 1975), condensed matter physicist
• Kim Ju-Lee (born 1969), mathematician, educator, now in the United States
• Kim V. Narry (born 1969), biochemist and microbiologist
• Lee Hong Kum, Antarctic researcher
• Lee Jung-Min, medical oncologist and physician-scientist
• Lim Hyesook (born 1963), electronics engineer, served as Minister of Science and ICT
• Oh Hee, (born 1969), mathematician
• Paik Hanhee, experimental quantum computing researcher
• Park So-Jung (born 1972), chemist
• Park Sukyung (born 1973), mechanical engineer, served as Science and Technology Advisor to President Moon Jae-in from 2020 to 2022
• Pi So-Young (born 1946), physicist
• Seo Eun-Suk (born 1971), astrophysicist
• Soh Chunghee Sarah, sociocultural anthropologist
• Yu Myeong-Hee (born 1954), South Korean microbiologist

Switzerland

• Silvia Arber (born 1968), neuroscientist
• Anita Studer (born 1957), ornithologist and environmentalist

Taiwan

• Yu-Ju Chen, proteogenomics researcher
• Chung-Pei Ma (born 1966), astrophysicist, now in the United States

Tanzania

• Agness Gidna, paleontologist

Trinidad and Tobago

• Michelle Antoine, neuroscientist
• Jo-Anne Sewlal (1979–2020), arachnologist

Turkey

• Ayşe Erzan (born 1949), theoretical physicist

Ukraine

• Svitlana Mayboroda (born 1981), mathematician, educator, researching harmonic analysis and partial differential equations
• Maryna Viazovska (born 1984), Ukrainian mathematician known for her work in sphere packing

United Kingdom

• Denise P. Barlow (1950–2017), British geneticist
• Gillian Bates (born 1956), British botanist, educator, Fellow of the Royal Society (2007)
• Alex Bayliss, British archaeologist
• Sue Black (born 1962), British computer scientist
• Jocelyn Bell Burnell (born 1943), astrophysicist who discovered radio pulsars
• A. Catrina Coleman (born 1956), Scottish electrical engineer, educator
• Mandy Chessell (born c.1965), British computer scientist with IBM
• Jenny Clack (1947–2020), paleontologist, expert on the "fish to tetrapod" evolutionary transition
• Bryony Coles (born 1946), British prehistoric archaeologist
• Janet Darbyshire, British epidemiologist, CBE (2010)
• Annette Dolphin (born 1951), British pharmacologist
• Shahina Farid, British archaeologist, best known for her work as Field Director and Project Coordinator at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey
• Maria Fitzgerald (born 1953), British neuroscientist
• Jane Goodall (born 1934), British primatologist and anthropologist
• Monica Grady (born 1958), British space scientist
• Emily Grossman (born 1978), British cancer researcher and science popularist
• Helena Hamerow (born 1961), British archeologist and specialist in medieval archaeology
• Joanne Johnson (born 1977), geologist, Antarctic scientist
• Tara Keck (born 1978), American-British neuroscientist
• Rachel McKendry (born 1973), chemist and digital public health pioneer
• Linda McDowell (born 1949), British geographer, writer
• Jane E. Parker (born 1960), British botanist who researches the immune responses of plants
• Emma Parmee, British chemist who was one of the leads in the discovery and development of sitagliptin
• Tracey Reynolds (born 1970s), British sociologist
• Margaret Stanley, British virologist, OBE (2004)
• Jean Thomas (born 1942), Welsh biochemist, educator
• Miriam Tildesley (1883–1979), English anthropologist
• Karen Vousden (born 1957), British medical researcher
• Christine Williams (graduated 1973), British nutritionist, educator

United States

Venezuela

• Mayly Sánchez (born 1972), astrophysicist studying neutrinos, awarded the US PECASE Prize in 2011

Vietnam

• Phạm Thị Trân Châu (born 1938), biochemist
• Hoang Thi Than (born 1944), Vietnamese geological engineer and archaeologist

Zambia

• Nsofwa Petronella Sampa, psychological counselor and HIV activist

Zimbabwe

• Idah Sithole-Niang (born 1957), biochemist focusing on cowpea production and disease

See also

• 21st-century women scientists
• Lists of women scientists
• Women scientists by century

References