Zibby Mag

By Maddie Woda

Whether you’re a student or a lifelong learner, fall is undeniably the best time to learn something new. Science—while not everyone’s best subject in school—comes to life in these five memoirs by women scientists. Unlike textbooks, these titles focus on storytelling and showing the human side of scientific research.

You’re guaranteed to learn something new!

A PORTRAIT OF THE SCIENTIST AS A YOUNG WOMAN BY LINDY ELKINS-TANTON

As an undergraduate at MIT, Lindy Elkins-Tanton wanted confirmation that she had earned her spot. Despite the admissions office publishing SAT scores “to show that women deserved to be there,” Elkins-Tanton’s male peers mostly scoffed at her presence. So, she did what any great scientist does: research. She surveyed the undergraduate class, processed the data, studied the results, and created a report of her findings.

This is the incredible backstory of one of the world’s foremost planetary scientists, male or female, and the second woman to receive a major NASA space exploration contract. Her memoir is an unsentimental, beautiful view into a scientist’s mind, and a reminder of what we can achieve through hard work and determination.

LAB GIRL BY HOPE JAHREN

Before I read Lab Girl—arguably the greatest science memoir of all time—I avoided science writing like the plague. I thought it would be as boring as my ninth-grade biology class (sorry, Ms. Leonard!). Hope Jahren, a geobiologist at the University of Oslo, completely changed my mind. Lab Girl walks us through Jahren’s journey to become a scientist, complete with lovely descriptions of her research and interests (including, but not limited to, how seeds grow).

She proves that while it is not easy to gain the respect of male colleagues as a woman in a male-dominated workspace, it is always worth it.

THE SMALLEST LIGHTS IN THE UNIVERSE BY SARA SEAGER

Sara Seager, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at MIT, is a certified genius—she won the MacArthur Fellowship, also known as the “Genius Grant,” in 2013. In passionate prose, she breaks down her intimidating research into layman’s terms: she’s searching for exoplanets, or planets outside of our solar system.

At the same time, she tells a brave and vulnerable story of what it was like to lose her husband at forty and how she survived widowhood as a young mother and scientist.

SPINELESS BY JULI BERWALD

I didn’t think I was particularly interested in jellyfish, and then I read Juli Berwald’s Spineless. Berwald, who held a PhD in oceanography but had left the industry to raise her boys, becomes obsessed with jellyfish, despite living nowhere near a coast. Suddenly, she is on the hunt for all things jellyfish, with her readers in tow. We follow her to Tel Aviv and Japan and her home in landlocked Texas, as she investigates an increasing jellyfish population and what their numbers mean for climate change.

As the best science memoirs do, she interweaves the story of her own life, both personal and academic. We watch as Berwald finds purpose in an unlikely source, with the jellyfish as her guide.

THE ARBORNAUT BY MEG LOWMAN

“In 1978, a young botanist with a lifelong passion for green giants and infatuated by leaves arrived in Australia on a fellowship to study tropical forests…That gobsmacked botanist was me.”

And so begins the story of The Arbornaut, which easily convinced me that Meg Lowman is the coolest scientist–no, person–in the world. Alternatively called “The Real Life Lorax” and “CanopyMeg,” Lowman is the rare scientist who chooses to research trees from an unconventional angle: top-down. As a graduate student, she developed a rigging system to safely ferry her into the canopy and study some of the tallest and most important forests in the world. Despite facing dangerous heights, poisonous insects, and sexist male colleagues (I don’t know which one is scariest), Lowman consistently exhibits her trademark enthusiasm, creating an utterly delightful reading experience.

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Maddie Woda is a graduate of Columbia University in New York City with a degree in English. She has writing published in The Maine Review, The Columbia Review, Dead Fern Press, The Emerson Review, and others. She currently lives in Brooklyn and works as an editorial assistant.