Melinda Gates
EDUCATION / HEALTH (1964 - present)
Melinda Gates is an American philanthropist
and a former general manager at Microsoft. In
2000 she and her husband co-funded the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's
largest private charitable organization, which
is working towards improving health and
education across the world. She has
consistently been ranked as one of the world's
most powerful women by Forbes. In one year
alone Gates pledged 560 million to improves
women's access to contraception in
developing countries. Alongside her husband
she was awarded the Presidential Medal of
Freedom in 2016. She was also presented
with the Legion of Honour, France's highest
award.
Williamina Flemming
ASTRONOMER (1857 - 1911)
A Scottish astronomer who emigrated to
America, Fleming, who, after her husband
abandoned her, got a job as a maid at to the
director of Harvard College Observatory.
Within two years her ability was recognised
and she initially began doing administration
for him and by 1881 she was formally invited
to join the Observatory. This led to Fleming
establishing the first photographic standards
of magnitude, that were then used to measure
the brightness of variable stars. She also
developed a system to classify stars by their
spectra alphabetically, categorizing more than
10,000 stars, discovering 10 new novae, 59
nebule, over 300 stars, white dwarf stars and
the horseshoe Nebula over the course of her
career. Fleming became the first American
women to be elected an honorary member of
the Royal Astronomical Society of London.
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