Lady Science is a magazine for the history and popular culture of science. We publish a variety of voices and work on women and gender across the sciences.
The oil lamp symbolizes knowledge and the act of illuminating women in the history of science
A Brief History
Editors-in-chief Anna Reser and Leila McNeill launched Lady Science on Ada Lovelace Day 2014. What began as a monthly newsletter written by Anna and Leila has grown into a monthly podcast and an independent magazine with more content between monthly issues, more writers and readers, and an editing staff.
Our Name
We are often asked about the name, Lady Science, that we've chosen for the magazine. Throughout history, women across the sciences have been separated from their male counterparts with the added descriptor 'lady': lady doctors, lady engineers, lady anatomists, and, of course, lady scientists. While this label was often wielded against them pejoratively, lady scientists donned the title proudly. Being a lady scientist didn't mean that she inherently did science differently, but she often was forced to do science differently to work around the systemic barriers meant to keep women out. These barriers were compounded for women of color, poor women, and women with disabilities. In the spirit of the lady scientists of the past, as we work to recover their complex and complicated lives, we investigate, critique, and challenge the oppressive structures of institutionalized science that lady scientists faced in the past and those that persist even today.