importantwomensbirthdays

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Amy Wadge

Amy Wadge was born in 1975 in Blackwell, England. Wadge has written music for and with artists including Keith Urban, LeAnn Rimes, Camila Cabello, Kacey Musgraves, Kylie Minogue, Dua Lipa, and Niall Horan. In 2016, she won a Grammy Award for co-writing Ed Sheeran's hit song "Thinking Out Loud". That same year, Wadge won two ASCAP London awards. She also co-wrote the UK's 2022 Eurovision entry, which got the UK's best result at the competition since 1998.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Kelly Cherry

Poet, essayist, and novelist Kelly Cherry was born in 1940 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Cherry wrote more than twenty books and her work has been published in over 200 anthologies. She received numerous honors including the Ellen Anderson Award, the Hanes Poetry Prize, and three PEN/Syndicated Fiction awards. In 2010, Cherry was named Poet Laureate of Virginia.

Kelly Cherry died in 2022 at the age of 81.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Aye Aye Win

Aye Aye Win was born in 1953 in Yangon, Myanmar. Win worked for the Associated Press in Myanmar for twenty-five years. Working as a journalist under a repressive military government with strict censorship laws, she experienced harassment by authorities. Over the course of her career, Win's phones were tapped, and she was called a traitor in state-run media. She interviewed the families of political dissidents even though they were being watched by the secret police, and also walked the streets to cover violent protests against the military government. In 2008, Win received the Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women's Media Foundation. In 2013, she won the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Gao Yaojie

Doctor and AIDS activist Gao Yaojie was born in 1927 in Cao County, China. In the 1990s, Gao uncovered how blood selling was propelling an AIDS epidemic in rural China. She was barred from giving interviews to the press, and Henan province health officials tried to discredit her. Gao persisted, speaking out against the blood-selling schemes that were infecting thousands of people, and becoming her country's most prominent AIDS activist. She wrote books, distributed leaflets, and conducted field research, even using her own pension funds to print educational materials. The national government acknowledged the crisis, but coverups and harassment by provincial authorities continued. In 2007, she was kept under house arrest to prevent her from obtaining a visa to accept an award in the US. Two years later, she fled to the United States.

Gao Yaojie died in 2023 at the age of 95.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Judy Heumann

Disability rights activist Judy Heumann was born in 1947 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Heumann contracted polio at eighteen months old, and became paralyzed as a result. She has been referred to as "the mother of the disability rights movement" for her long history of advocacy. In the 1970s, Heumann, along with roughly 100 other people with disabilities, peacefully occupied a federal building to protest the lack of implementation regulations for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, a federal disability discrimination law. The protest forced the Carter administration to implement the law. She also worked in the office of Senator Harrison Williams on what would eventually become the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Judy Heumann died in 2023 at the age of 75.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Nikki McCray-Penson

Basketball player Nikki McCray-Penson was born in 1971 in Collerville, Tennessee. McCray-Penson played with the WNBA for nine seasons and was a three-time WNBA All-Star. She and her teammates won gold medals at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics. McCray-Penson was head women's basketball coach at Old Dominion and later Mississippi State. In 2012, she was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.

Nikki McCray-Penson died in 2023 at the age of 51.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Mary Hartwell Catherwood

Mary Hartwell Catherwood was born in 1847 in Luray, Ohio. Catherwood's first short story, The Hospital Nurse, was published in 1864, and her first novel was published in 1875. She wrote prolifically for both children and adults, publishing consistently in publications such as Harper's Magazine and Atlantic Monthly. Much of Catherwood's writing focused on life in the Midwest, and her women characters tended to be independent and self-reliant.

Mary Hartwell Catherwood died in 1902 at the age of 55.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Allie Vibert Douglas

Allie Vibert Douglas was born in 1894 in Montreal, Quebec. After obtaining her PhD at McGill, she remained there for 14 years to teach physics and astrophysics before going to work at Queens University. Her research focused on the stark effect in stellar atmospheres and spectroscopic absolute magnitudes of stars. As chair of the War Guests Committee of the Canadian Federation of University Women during World War II, Douglas helped female academic refugees resettle in Canada. From 1943 to 1944, she served as President of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, the first woman to hold this position. In 1967, she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Allie Vibert Douglas died in 1988 at the age of 93. Both an asteroid as well as a crater on Venus have been named after her.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Ruth Railton

Ruth Railton was born in 1915 in Folkestone, Kent, Engand. In 1947, Railton founded the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and she served as its musical director for nearly 20 years. The orchestra gave its first recital in 1948, and went on to work with many prominent conductors and tour throughout Europe. In 1966, Railton as appointed a DBE. Railton also served as a governor of the Royal Ballet School from 1966 until 1974.

Ruth Railton died in 2001 a t the age of 85. The NYO still exists today, with many of its members going on to enjoy distinguished careers in music. In 2012, the orchestra received the Queen's Medal for Music.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Hellen Obiri

Middle and long-distance runner Hellen Obiri was born in 1989 in Kisii, Kenya. Obiri won silver medals in the 5000m at both the 2016 and 2020 Olympics. In 2023, she won both the Boston Marathon and the New York Marathon. In 2024, she won her second consecutive Boston Marathon title, and an Olympic bronze medal in the marathon.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Lola Ridge

Poet and activist Lola Ridge was born in 1873 in Dublin, Ireland. Ridge championed the working class, and her poetry dealt with subjects such as labor, immigrants, sex, and the death penalty. She first got the attention of critics in 1918, when her poem "The Ghetto" was published in The New Republic. Ridge published her first book of poetry, The Ghetto and Other Poems, later that year. Many of the poems in the collection explored the lives of Jewish immigrants living in the ghettos of New York City. She went on to publish several more poetry collections, including Red Flags, Sun-up, and Other Poems, and Firehead. In 1927, Ridge was arrested while protesting the executions of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. She was a highly acclaimed poet in her day, winning two Shelley Memorial Awards and a Poetry Magazine Guarantor's Prize.

Lola Ridge died in 1941 at the age of 67.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Kathrin Altwegg

Kathrin Altwegg was born in 1951 in Balsthal, Switzerland. Altwegg, an astrophysicist, is professor emeritus in space research and planetology at the University of Bern. She was Principal Investigator of the ROSINA (Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis) instrument on the European Space Agency's Rosetta Mission. This was the first mission designed to orbit and land on a comet. Altwegg was also the first director of the University of Bern's Center for Space and Habitability.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Kathryn Stott

Concert pianist Kathryn Stott was born in 1958 in Nelson, Lancashire, England. Stott first gained notoriety at 19 years old, when she won fifth prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition. In 1978, she met Yo-Yo Ma, and the two performed and recorded music together for 40 years. Stott has also recorded extensively as a solo artist, and has had many pieces written specifically for her. She is also a professor at the Royal Northern College of Music. In 2024, Stott announced her retirement from performing.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Mona Hanna

Dr. Mona Hanna was born in 1976 in Sheffield, England. While working as a pediatrician in Flint, Michigan, Dr. Hanna reviewed patient records and noticed higher percentages of children with elevated lead levels. She shared her findings, which state officials unsuccessfully tried to discredit. Dr. Hanna became a leader in the effort to publicize and confront the Flint water crisis. She was named one of TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in 2016. In 2019, Dr. Hanna received the Vilcek-Gold Humanism in Healthcare Award, and in 2024, she won the National Humanism in Medicine Award. Dr. Hanna is the founding director of the Pediatric Public Health Initiative, a joint effort between Michigan State University and Hurley Children's Hospital to address the impact of lead exposure on Flint.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Kristin Lauter

Mathematician and cryptographer Kristin Lauter was born in Wisconsin in 1969. Lauter's research focuses on number theory, algebraic geometry, and applications to cryptography. She worked at Microsoft Research for over 20 years, is currently Senior Director of Meta's Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) Labs North America. In 2008, Lauter and her coauthors won the Selfirdge Prize in Computational Number Theory. In 2015, she was elected to the American Mathematical Society and from 2015 to 2017, she was president of the Association for Women in Mathematics.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Iveta Radičová

Iveta Radičová was born in 1956 in what is now Bratislava, Slovakia. From 2005 to 2006, Radičová served as Slovakia's Minister for Labor and Social Affairs. From 2010 to 2012, she was the country's Prime Minister. Before entering politics, she established and led the nonprofit Social Policy Analysis Center, and served as director of the Slovak Academy of Science’s Institute of Sociology.

Image source: US Department of State - cropped from original

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Louise Catherine Breslau

Louise Catherine Breslau was born in 1856 in Munich, Germany. Breslau began drawing while living in a convent and took lessons from a local artist. She later enrolled at the Académie Julian. Breslau displayed her work at the 1879 Paris Salon. She did so again in 1881, earning an honorable mention for her painting Portrait of Friends. Several of Breslau's works were purchased by the French state. In 1901, she received the Legion of Honor. Several of Breslau's pieces can be found in the collection of the Louvre.

Louise Catherine Breslau died in 1927 at the age of 70.