Discover the Women of the Hall

First American woman astronaut (1983), when she rode aboard the Challenger into space. A scientist, Ride served as the Director of the California Space Institute at the University of California, San Diego.

Hispanic-American businesswoman who started her own construction firm in 1976 and has broken many barriers in a historically male-dominated world. As co-owner of The Colorado Rockies baseball team, Alvarado is also the first Hispanic-American, male or female, to own a major league baseball franchise.

Loretta J. Ross is a Black academic, feminist, and activist for reproductive justice, especially among women of color. Driven by her personal experiences as a survivor of rape and nonconsensual sterilization, Ross has dedicated her extensive career in academia and activism to reframing reproductive rights within a broader context of human rights.

Sonia Sotomayor is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009 after leadership as an assistant district attorney, in private practice and across a distinguished judicial career. She is the third woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court and the first Hispanic and Latina Justice in the Court’s 230 years. A graduate of Princeton and Yale Law School, Sotomayor’s experiences as one of few Latinas at these institutions led her to advocate for inclusion on campuses, foreshadowing her focus on public service across her career. During her tenure on the Supreme Court, Sotomayor has been reputed for her work concerning the rights of defendants, calls for reform of the criminal justice system, and attention to issues of race, gender and ethnic identity. Justice Sotomayor is also an author, including of “My Beloved World/Mi Mundo Adorado,” “A Judge Grows in the Bronx/La juez que creció en el Bronx” and “Turning pages/Pasando Páginas.” A recipient of the Katherine Hepburn Award from Bryn Mawr College honoring women who change the world, Sotomayor has also received multiple honorary degrees, including from her alma mater Princeton University.

The first Black woman to own her own television production company and who became television’s highest-paid entertainer. She is an advocate for ending child abuse, and she contributes generously to colleges and universities.

Civil Rights icon, activist, author, and speaker, Ruby Bridges stepped into history books in 1960 when at six years old she single-handedly broke down barriers by desegregating the all-white William Frantz Elementary school in New Orleans.

A cosmetic entrepreneur who created, funded, and led a research foundation that has shaped a paradigm-breaking approach to medical research. The Guthy-Jackson Charitable Foundation has created a global community of patients, advocates, and healthcare stakeholders, with significant positive impact on the treatment of autoimmune and related diseases.

First woman to travel across the ice to the North and South Poles. She was the first woman to travel across Greenland on skis, and in 1993, was leader of the American Women’s Expedition, a group of four who skied more than 600 miles to the South Pole.

First American woman to pilot a spacecraft. A math teacher at the Air Force Academy and test pilot, Collins served as pilot of the space shuttle Discovery during a mission to rendezvous with space station Mir. In July, 1999 she became NASA’s first female commander in space.

An internationally recognized leader in the field of atmospheric science, Susan Solomon pioneered the theory explaining how and why the ozone hole occurs in Antarctica, and obtained some of the first chemical measurements that established man-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as its cause. Solomon is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 1999 National Medal of Science and the Asahi Foundation of Japan’s Blue Planet Prize in 2004. From 2002-2008, Solomon served as the co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Albert Gore, Jr. in 2007. Solomon’s current research as a senior scientist with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration focuses on climate change, ozone depletion and the links between the two.

Physician, engineer and astronaut. Jemison was the first African American woman astronaut in space, traveling on the Endeavor in 1992. Jemison today works on linking space age technology with developing nations and encouraging women and minorities to enter scientific fields.

Lin, an architectural designer who gained fame at the age of 21 as creator of the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, is a Chinese-American who draws on a variety of culturally diverse sources for her inspiration. Some of her well-known works include the Civil Rights Memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, AL and The Wave Field at the University of Michigan.

Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw is the co-founder and ExecutiveDirector of the African American Policy Forum, a gender and racial justice legal think tank, and the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School. She is a trailblazing scholar, advocate, and professor whose ideas have reshaped the landscape of critical race theory and Black feminist legal theory.

A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities, Winona LaDuke advocates for public support and funding for frontline native environmental groups. In 1994, she was nominated by Time Magazine as one of America’s most promising leaders under forty years of age. In 1998, she was named Ms. Magazine Woman of the Year. Ms. LaDuke was the vice-presidential candidate on the Green Party ticket in both 1996 and 2000. She currently serves as director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project in Minnesota.

With more than 3,700 career wins, Julie Krone is the leading female Thoroughbred horse racing jockey of all time. Krone made history in 1993 when she became the first woman to win a Triple Crown event at the Belmont Stakes. In 2003, she went on to become the first woman to win a Breeders’ Cup event at the Juvenile Fillies and the first woman to win a million dollar event at the Pacific Classic. Krone initially retired from horse racing in 1999 and became a commentator and analyst for the TVG racing network, but returned to the sport in 2002, retiring for a second time in 2004. Krone was named ESPN’s 1993 Professional Female Athlete of the Year, and in 2000, she became the first woman inducted into the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame.

A citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma, Sarah Deer is a professor at the University of Kansas and an engaged activist for indigenous women. Ending violence against women is her life’s goal. A lawyer by trade and an advocate in practice, Deer’s scholarship and public policy work focuses on the intersection of federal Indian law and victims’ rights, using indigenous feminist principles as a framework. Her work to end violence against Native women has received national recognition from the American Bar Association and the Department of Justice as well as a MacArthur fellowship.

Colonel Nicole Malachowski (USAF, Ret.) has over 21 years of experience as an officer, leader, and fighter pilot in the United States Air Force. Upon her commission into the military, she was competitively selected to fly combat aircraft and embarked on an adventure among the first group of women to fly modern fighters. She has commanded a fighter squadron, piloted within the USAF air demonstration squadron, (better known as the “Thunderbirds”) and served as a White House Fellow and as an advisor to the First Lady of the United States during the Obama Administration. Colonel Malachowski is also committed to work focused on tick-borne diseases.

She is a world record holding athlete, ground-breaking high fashion model, beacon for design tech, dedicated advocate, and avant-garde actor. She conceived of, and was the first to wear and compete in, prostheses modeled after the hind legs of a cheetah – now the international standard for amputee runners.

Serena Williams is a highly regarded tennis champion, entrepreneur, investor, fashion designer, and executive producer. Considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, she was ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) for 319 weeks, including a joint-record 186 consecutive weeks, and finished as the year-end No. 1 five times.