The Most Famous Female Mathematicians to Inspire Students

Some of the world’s most famous mathematicians are women, yet they’re often overlooked in history. By empowering girls from a young age and challenging stereotypes, we can begin to change the way the world views gender equality. Working as a maths teacher is one of the ways you could transform young lives and alter their thinking. Being a female mathematician could inspire the new generation of budding brainiacs.

We believe in training teachers who can inspire the next generation. So, here’s a look at some of the most famous female mathematicians that will transform the way that women are perceived.

Top 10 female mathematicians to inspire pupils

1. Hypatia – an Ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician
2. Sophie Germain – an 18th-century mathematician obsessed with number theory and calculus
3. Caroline Herschel – the first woman to receive the Royal Astronomical Society’s gold medal in 1828
4. Ada Lovelace – a Victorian computer pioneer known as “The Enchantress of Numbers”
5. Sofia Kovalevskaya – the first female to gain a northern European professorship in mathematics
6. Emmy Noether – described by Albert Einstein as “the most creative and significant female maths genius of all time”
7. Florence Nightingale – a revolutionary in the nursing profession and also a pioneer in the use of statistics
8. Joan Clarke – the only female code-breaker at Bletchley Park
9. Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell – the detector of the first radio pulsar in the late 1960s
10. Radia Perlman – a computer algorithm expert who helped to create the internet