I like these famous women scientist cards you can buy. This one comes from Forest Grove, Oregon, and suburb of Portland.
Hertha Ayrton (1854-1923) was an English electrical engineer, mathematician, physicist, inventor, and a suffragette. She attended Girton College, Cambridge, and studied mathematics and was coached by physicist Richard Glazebrook. She passed the Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge, but they did not grant her an academic degree because they did not award full degrees to women. Instead she passed an external examination at the University of London, which did award her a Bachelor of Science Degree in 1881.
In 1844 she attended evening classes on electricity at Finsbury Technical College. She ended up marrying the instructor, Professor William Edward Ayrton, in 1885. He was a pioneer in electrical engineering and physics education and a fellow of the Royal Society. She assisted him with experiments in physics and electricity, and soon began her own investigations into the characteristics of the electrical arc.
In 1899, she became the first woman to read her own paper before the Institution of Electrical Engineers, entitled The Hissing of the Electric Arc. She became the female member of the IEE. She tried to petition the Royal Society to allow her to read another paper The Mechanism of the Electric Arc, but was rejected because of her gender. Instead, John Perry read it in her stead in 1901. The Royal Society did award her the Hughes Medal in 1906, the first woman in Society history, in honour of her research on the motion iof ripples in sand and water, and her work on the electric arc.
Ayrton became involved in women's suffrage in her 50s, helping raise money and petitioning politicians.
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