How The Matilda Effect Removes Women in STEM From History - Beyond the Scenes | The Daily Show
Our very own Katie Hafner was featured on Beyond the Scenes from The Daily Show.
Lost Women of Science tells the remarkable stories of groundbreaking women who never got the full recognition they deserved – until now.
The Lost Women of Science Initiative is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization with two related missions: To tell the forgotten stories of female scientists who made groundbreaking achievements in their fields and to inspire girls and young women to embark on careers in STEM.
The Initiative’s flagship is the Lost Women of Science podcast, which, through deep reporting and rich storytelling, revisits the historical record one extraordinary scientist at a time.
In 1965, a team of doctors at Rockefeller University announced what sounded like a miracle—they’d found a treatment for heroin addiction that actually seemed to work.
For nearly two years, the researchers had been running an experiment with a small group of men, aged 19 to 37, who’d been using heroin for several years—and the results were astonishing. Men who’d been transfixed by heroin cravings for years, who had tried to quit before and failed, were suddenly able to return to their lives. One started painting. Another finished high school and got a scholarship to go to college.
The key to these transformations was a drug called methadone. But the treatment was controversial, and one of the doctors on the team already had a bit of a reputation as a bold, and possibly even reckless, defier of convention: Marie Nyswander.
This season, we bring you her story and the radical treatment that would upend the landscape of addiction for decades to come.
Art credit: Graphic design by Janice Fung
We’re snatching female scientists from the jaws of historical obscurity and we need your help.
If there’s a woman you’re aware of who achieved something remarkable but has been omitted from the historical record, WE WANT TO KNOW.
Leave us a brief message at the number below and we’ll call you back at Bat Phone speed! Make sure to give us your full name, where you're calling from, as well as the scientist's full name and her scientific field. And give us the best way to reach you.
Or get in touch with us here.
We’re excited to introduce Shorts, a new season from Lost Women of Science. Each 30-minute episode is like a mini season that tells the story of one scientist.
Listen HereListen to the TrailerKatie Hafner was a longtime reporter for The New York Times, where she continues to be a frequent contributor. Katie is uniquely positioned to tell the stories of lost women of science. Not only does she bring a skilled hand to complex narratives, but she has been writing about women in STEM for nearly 30 years. She is the author of six books of non-fiction, and her first novel, The Boys, was published in July 2022 by Spiegel & Grau. Katie is also the host and executive producer of Our Mothers Ourselves, an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers.