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Debbie says:

Shining a light on underappreciated women in science is badass.

Using creative visual art for that purpose is more badass, especially when you call the project Beyond Curie:Badass Women in Science. Meghan Werft’s article on the project at Global Citizen has more images and provides a link to purchase the posters at the project’s Kickstarter page.

Being a woman of color using creative art to shine a light on underappreciated women in science, including many women of color, is seriously badass. Therefore, Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya is hereby my current favorite Serious Badass (a hotly contested position).

Phingbodhipakkiya has been interested in women in science her whole life, as you can tell from the above collage featuring the artist’s own fourth-grade book report about Rita Levi-Montalcini, who shared the 1986 Nobel Prize in Medicine with Stanley Cohen. They won the Nobel for their discoveries of a substance which causes vigorous nervous system growth in chicken embryos. Their work “has provided a deeper understanding of medical problems like deformities, senile dementia, delayed wound healing, and tumor diseases.”

Phingbodhipakkiya’s 32 honorees are all over the map. Mae Jemison, pictured above, was the first African-American woman astronaut, in 1992. She is also a physician, and currently heads a joint government/private entity whose goal is to put together a 100-year business plan to fund interstellar travel. My science-fiction reader’s heart beats faster just thinking about this.

Phingbodhipakkiya is still creating posters. If you ever doubted for a moment that women from all over the world are advancing the cause of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects — or if you know anyone who does doubt — this project will help.

Oh, and that Kickstarter? Phingbodhipakkiya has gotten $21,000+ of her $1000 goal so far.