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Scientists |
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Astronauts |
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Roberta Lynn Bondar |
Born
Sault Ste Marie, Ontario December 4, 1945. Canada’s first woman astronaut
had flair. She took her favourite food, Girl Guide cookies, into space with
her in 1992. She brought from space a real sense of just how delicate our
small blue planet really is and is now using her photography to help show
and save our earth’s environment. She has several university degrees. As
Chancellor of Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario she continues to be
an inspiration to Canadian youth. Check out how many schools she went to in
the “Canadian Who’s Who” at your library. Check out Dr. Bondar's web page:
http://www.robertabondar.ca/ |
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Julie Payette. |
Born Montreal, Quebec
October 20. 1963. Did you know that
this Canadian astronaut plays piano and has sung with the Montreal symphonic Orchestra
Chamber Choir? She speaks 4 languages besides English and French. She enjoys triathlon,
skiing, racquet sports and scuba diving.
This young engineer was chosen as an astronaut in 1992 and went into space
in 1999. Read her Biography from the Canadian Space Agency at : http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/payette.html |
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Engineers
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Elizabeth Muriel Gregory (Elsie) MacGill. |
Born
Vancouver, British Columbia 1905. Died November 4, 1980. She became Canada’s
first woman graduate to hold a degree in electrical engineering. She also
held a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. During WW
II her primary responsibility was the production of the Hawker Hurricane
fighter aircraft. Her staff of 4,500 people produced more than 2000
aircraft. In 1937 she was the first woman to be admitted corporate
membership in the Engineering Institute of Canada. She is a member of
Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame. She is considered the first woman to be a
designer of airplanes. |
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Indira Vasanti Samarasekera |
Born Colombo, Sri Lanka April 11, 1952. A graduate of the Ladies College of
Colombo, Sri Lanka in 1968 she obtained the B.Sc, honouring in Mechanical
Engineering in 1974. Married in 1975 she studied in the U.S.A and by 1976
she had earned her masters in Mechanical Engineering from the University of
California. Moving to Canada she earned her PhD at the University of British
Columbia. As she began to raise her two children she lectured at the
University of British Columbia. Her research was recognized with the Killam
Prize in 1986. She earned the Robert W. Hunt Silver Medal in both 1983 and
1993. She was elected President of the Metallurgical Society in 1995. A
Fellow in the Canadian Academy of Engineers in 1997, the same that year her
work won her the John Chipman Medal. This was followed the Science Council
Gold Medal in 1998. In 2002 she became an officer in the Order of Canada.
Suggested sources: Canadian Who’s Who (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press) 2004. |
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Scientists
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Helen Irene Battle. |
Born
London, Ontario August 31, 1903. Died June 17, 1994.One of the first women
to enter the male dominated field of zoology. She was chosen on of the
outstanding women of Science by the National Museum of Natural Science. |
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Harriet Brooks. |
She
graduated from McGill University in 1888 and began research with the
renowned Dr. Ernest Rutherford as Canada’s first woman nuclear physicist. In
1901 she was the first woman to stud at the Cavendish Laboratory at
Cambridge University in England. After she earned her Masters degree she
worked for a short period of time in the Laboratory of Dr. Marie Curie. She
returned to Canada to resume her work with Dr. Rutherford until 1907 when
she married Frank Pitcher. Since protocol of the day was for women not to
work once they were married, Harriet was forced to give up her work as a
physicist. She turned her energies to raising her three children and
remained active in the Federation of University women. |
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Donna Arlene Chow. |
Born March 9, 1941. After her studies in science
at university she entered the field of research. She also has an interest in
recognizing women's work and has contributed to Women In Science. She has
herself become a teacher at the Department of Immunology at the University
of Manitoba and has been recognized at the YWCA Woman of Distinction in
1992. She is also a recipient of the the Canada 125 medal. |
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Ada Mary Courtice |
née Brown Born Pickering, Canada West (Ontario) 1860. Died
1923. She attended Whitby Ladies College and settled down with her husband.
However after his untimely death she found the need to support herself. She
opened a private school in Toronto. Turning her energies to the
administration of education she became a member of the Toronto Board of
Education. In 1914 she founded the Home and School Movement in Toronto and
by 1916 she laid the foundation for the Ontario Foundation of Home ad
School. She served President of the Toronto Council of Home and School Clubs
which under her leadership grew from 6 to 24 members. |
Severn Cullis-Suzuki
Environmentalist
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Born November 30, 1979. Vancouver, British Columbia. At nine she founded the
environmental Children’s Organization (ECO) to learn and teach other
children about the environment. At 12 she and some of her friends from ECO
raised funds and attended the Earth
Summit in Rio de Janero where she
presented a speech. In 1993 she was on the United Nations Environment
Program Global 500 Honour Role. And she published her first book: Tell the
World, (Doubleday Press). She earned her B Sc from Yale University in the
U.S. In 2000, as a millennium project she and some friends cycled across
Canada. By 2002 she
was an accomplished world environment speaker and completed a speaking tour
of Japan. When she spoke before the United Nations, some delegates had tears
in their eyes. She also worked with the Discovery Channel to bring
environments issues to children by hosting a regular program on the subject.
She is the founder of Skyfish, a grassroots organization that works for
sustainable living with the aim of solving problems that won’t be solved by
diplomats and documents. In 2007 she do-compiled the book : Notes from
Canada’s Young Activists; a generation stands up for change. (Greystone
Press) .
Sources: Stephanie Kim Gibson, Influential and Intriguing Canadians
(Rubicon, 2003); Eric Volumes, ‘Susuki looks south to define our identity’.
Guelph Mercury, November 3, 2008. |
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Allie Vibert Douglas |
née Vibert Born Montreal, Quebec December 5, 1894. Died July
2, 1988. Orphaned in 1904 she and her brother were raised by relatives. At
the outbreak of World War l she went to London , England, to work in the War
Office as a statistician. In 1918 at the age of 23, she was awarded the
Silver Cross of the Order of the British Empire for her work. After the war
she began her university studies receiving her undergraduate degree from
McGill in 1920 and her Masters in physics in 1921. By 1926 she was the first
woman in Canada to earn her PhD in astrophysics. . In 1939 she became Dean
of Women and a professor of Astronomy at Queen's University at Kingston,
Ontario. She helped many women in the sciences and published both scholarly
and popular articles. As an extraordinary speaker, Douglas was a popular
invitee to speak at many organizations which took her to almost every
country in the world. She was a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in
Britain and served as president of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.
She was named a "Woman of the Century" by the National Council of Jewish
Women in 1967 and that same year, she was inducted into the Order of Canada
during its inaugural year. In 1988 astronomers named a new planet, Vibert
Douglas in her honour. |
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Isobel Moira Dunbar |
Born
Edinburgh, Scotland February 3, 1918. Died November 22, 1999. An Oxford
University graduate, she immigrated to Canada and worked in the far north.
An ice research scientist, she was one of the first women to be taken for
cruises on Canadian Government icebreakers. The author of many scientific
studies, she received the Massey Medal in 1972.
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Tamara Grand |
Interested in the evolution of species, she uses fish as a
model system. She has studies and expounded her theories at Concordia
University, Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia.
She has produced several scientific papers and is involved in promoting
science among youn women through the Society for Canadian Women in Science
and Technology. She has earned the Alice Wilson Award from the Royal Society
of Canada for her research and efforts with youth. |
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Helen Battles Hogg-Priestley. |
(née
Sawyer) Born Lowell, Massachusetts U.S.A. August 1, 1905. Died January 28,
1993. An astronomer who joined the teaching staff of the University of
Toronto in 1936, she was nominated professor emeritus in 1976. A world
expert who receive numerous honours including being a Companion in the Order
of Canada, she took her profession to radio and TV in a clear and
understandable manner for all listeners. She wrote a book, “The Stars Belong
to Everyone”. For her efforts to bring information to the public she was the
first person to win the Klumpke-Roberts Award and she is also the only
Canadian woman to have a minor planet (#2917) named after her! |
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Birute Galdikas |
Born Germany May 10, 1946.Growing up in Toronto she headed
west to begin her studies at the University of British Columbia and then off
to the University of California in LA to study for her masters and PhD. She
has earned the distinct title as the world's foremost authority on
orangutans, the great apes that live in the rain-forests of Borneo. For 23
years she spent time in the jungle doing observations and attempting
sightings of the extremely private orangutans who like to be left alone! She
has received many awards for her research including the Petra Award in 1990,
the Eddie Bauer Hero of the Earth Award in 1991, the Sierra Club Checo
Mendes Award in 1992 and the United Nations Global 500 Award in 1993. |
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Elizabeth Rebecca Laird |
Born
Owen Sound,
Ontario
1874. Died 1969. When attending the
University
of Toronto, being first in her class for three straight year was not enough
to allow her to continue with graduate studies. Women were not accepted for
graduate studies. She taught at the
Ontario
Ladies
College in Whitby, Ontario before she was able to begin graduate studies at
Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. In 1898/99 she worked at
Berlin
University
in Germany on a fellowship. Vacant positions were filled by women students.
She earned her PhD at Bryn Mawr in 1901. Instructing at
Mount
Holyoke College she became a professor in 1904 and Head of the Department of
Physics, a position she held for 36 years. Retiring in 1940 she returned to
live in London Ontario where she asked the University of Western Ontario if
she could help in any way. She would work on an intensive radar research
program and was professor emeritus until she was 78 years old in 1953. Mini
profile suggest by LDL. |
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Mabel McIntosh |
Born January 11, 1922. A married woman with family, Mabel
took an interest in the Quebec Society for the Protection of Birds. She even
lectured at local schools and became interested in the scientific study of
birds. After the breakdown of her marriage her passion became an obsession.
She would grow and develop into a noted North American ornithologist. She
has travelled to South America and Africa. She has contributed data to
scientific studies and published articles on hawk migration. |
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Margaret Newton |
Born
Montreal, Quebec April 20, 1887. Died April 6, 1971. During her early days
of university study Margaret took an interest in diseases that related to
Canada stable agricultural product, wheat. She was one of the first women in
Canada to earn a degree in agriculture and she was the first Canadian woman
to earn a PHD in agricultural sciences. Her lifetime work in wheat rust was
well respected. In 1922 she was invited to Russia to discuss her work. She
was the second woman to become a “Fellow” in the Royal Society of Canada. In
1942 she became the first woman recipient of the Flavelle Medal for
meritorious achievement in biological science. The list of winners of this
award that is recorded online contains no other winners who are women! The
University of Victoria named one of its residences “Margaret Newton” Hall.
After more than 25 years exposure from her research she was forced to retire
because of ill health. |
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Isabella Preston. |
Born Lancaster, England September 4, 1881
Died January 31, 1965. She was the first professional hybridist in Canada.
(She worked with plants developing new varieties) She joined the staff of
the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa where during her career she
originated nearly 200 hybrid plants! Her specialty was lilies and she wrote
the first book on lily cultivation in Canada. |
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Norah Urquhart
Pioneer in Entomology |
Born June 23,
1918 Died Pickering, Ontario March 13, 2009. Norah married Dr. Fred Urquhart
in 1945 and the couple moved to Highland Creek in Scarborough, Ontario where
Son Doug was born. A zoologist with the Royal Ontario Museum and the
University of Toronto, Fred had an avocation for the Monarch Butterfly. With
very little support the couple began a tagging program from their home to
learn where the Monarch butterfly’s of Ontario went each winter. Eventually
joined volunteers, it was Norah who answered all enquiries and posted a
newsletter to all involved. She attended to public relations including
writing an article for a Mexican newspaper in 1972. The article was read by
a future volunteer and by 1975 the first Mexican valley of the Monarch’s was
located. The couple’s work is considered the entomological discovery of the
20th Century. These pioneers had their work recognized with
investiture into the Order of Canada in 1998. Sources: The Star.com
“couples home was butterfly ground zero” (accessed June 2009); Inside
Toronto.ca “Norah Urquhart, a pioneer in Monarch Butterfly research”.
(accessed June 2009) ; Information was also supplied by Donald Davis,
Toronto, Ontario; also personal knowledge. |
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Alice Evelyn Wilson. |
Born
Coburg, Ontario August 26, 1881. Died April 15, 1964. A paleontologist who
worked at the Geological Survey of Canada, where she described fossils in
papers and books. She lectured and traveled to bring geology to the public,
especially children. In 1937 she was the first woman to be elected a fellow
of the Royal Society of Canada. |
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