Our Mission

About the Lost Women of Science Initiative

The Lost Women of Science Initiative is a non-profit educational organization with the overarching goal of inspiring girls and young women -- especially those from communities chronically underrepresented in the STEM professions -- to embark on careers in STEM. The Initiative’s flagship is its Lost Women of Science podcast. As a full, mission-driven organization, the Lost Women of Science Initiative plans to digitize and archive our research efforts and make all primary source material available to students, educators, and historians of science.

The story behind our podcast

For every Rosalind Franklin, Hedy Lamarr or Katherine Johnson whose story has been told, there are dozens more whose stories remain unknown to the public at large, or even to contemporaries in their field. We’re talking about scientists who made tremendous contributions to their field but, for reasons of time and place and gender, have gone largely unrecognized.  We believe it is imperative  – now more than ever – to tell the stories of women who shifted our understanding of the world around us but have been lost to history.

The Lost Women of Science podcast series is an exemplar of top-notch journalism, training a lens on forgotten but heroic women of science. Each multi-episode season will focus on a different female scientist and will be told as a deeply reported, scripted, and scored audio narrative.

Lost Women of Science is paying it both ways – forward as well as back. That is, as much as it revisits history, Lost Women of Science will also inspire young women working their way through the STEM pipeline.