Two Vassar College Alumnae named among the 50 Most Important Women in Science

Discover Magazine's November 2002 issue distinguished two Vassar College alumnae among a roster of the 50 most important women in science. Patricia S. Goldman-Rakic (Class of 1959) and Vera Rubin (Class of 1948) were honored for their extraordinary achievements in the fields of neuroscience and astronomy, respectively.

Goldman-Rakic's discoveries on short-term memory have implications for the treatment of diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and schizophrenia. Her pioneering studies detail the intricate circuitry within the pre-frontal cortex of the human brain. She has published over 200 research articles in leading journals on the cellular analysis of the brain' s memory mechanisms.

After graduating from Vassar, Goldman-Rakic received her Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles. She was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences and into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. From 1989 to 1990, she served as president of the Society for Neuroscience. Goldman-Rakic is currently the Eugene Higgins Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Neurobiology at Yale University, where she also holds joint appointments in the departments of psychiatry, neurology, and psychology.

Rubin is a senior fellow with the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. She specializes in the study of dark matter by gauging the velocity fields of distant galaxies. Her astronomy research has given weight to the nascent belief that up to 90 percent of the universe's matter is dark and clustered around galaxies.

In 1965, Rubin became the first woman permitted to observe at the Palomar Observatory. She was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (in London) - the first woman to receive this medal since Caroline Herschel in 1828.

With Carnegie colleague Kent Ford, Rubin built one of the first spectrographs used to study quasars. She is a recipient of the National Medal of Science and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Discover Magazine's staff selected 50 women scientists from over 500 nominees.

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Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

This article was posted on Sunday, December 1st, 2002.