Female Geniuses Throughout History

Meet 92 extraordinary women geniuses who defied the odds, broke barriers, and made groundbreaking contributions to science, art, literature, and philosophy.

Edith Stern

b. 1952 · United States

Holding over 100 US patents and being awarded the ASME Kate Gleason Award.

IQ 200

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Nadia Camukova

b. 1976 · Russia

It's been previously reported Camukova has the highest IQ in the world, and the talented linguist ha

IQ 200

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Marilyn vos Savant

b. 1946 · United States

Penning the 'Ask Marilyn' column in Parade magazine and solving the 'Monty Hall Problem' in the proc

IQ 186

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Marie Curie

1867–1934 · Poland

Radioactivity Polonium Radium

IQ 180

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Mary Somerville

1780–1872 · United Kingdom

Self-taught mathematician and polymath; bestselling popularizer of science; acclaimed for her transl

IQ 180

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Elizabeth I

1533–1603 · United Kingdom

Queen of England (reign: 1558 to 1603); educated by renowned scholar, Roger Ascham; as a student, sh

IQ 175

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Margaret Fuller

1810–1850 · United States

Woman in the Nineteenth Century

IQ 175

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Hypatia

350–415 · Egypt

The greatest mathematician of her time, Hypatia’s murder signaled the coming of the dark ages.

IQ 170

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Judit Polgár

b. 1976 · Hungary

Being the strongest female chess player of all time.

IQ 170

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Manahel Thabet

b. 1981 · YE

the youngest person to receive a financial engineering Ph.D. magna cum laude. In 2012 she came up wi

IQ 168

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Lise Meitner

1878–1968 · Austria

Discovery of protactinium Discovery of nuclear fission

IQ 165

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Lydia Sebastian

b. 2003 · India

started speaking when she was just six months old and at the age of four, she started playing the vi

IQ 162

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Mahnoor Cheema

b. 2007 · United Kingdom

achieving 34 GCSE subjects & IQ score of 161

IQ 161

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Ada Lovelace

1815–1852 · United Kingdom

The mother of computing science; contributed to the first published computer program; was the first

IQ 160

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Ayn Rand

1905–1982 · Russia

The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged

IQ 160

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Acharya S

1960–2015 · United States

The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold (1999) • Did Moses Exist? The Myth of the Israel

IQ 160

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Elizabeth Gaskell

1810–1865 · England

Cranford (1851–53), North and South (1854–55), and Wives and Daughters (1865)

IQ 160

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George Eliot

1819–1880 · England

The Mill on the Floss (1860) • Silas Marner (1861) • Romola (1862–1863) • Middlemarch (1871–72) • Da

IQ 160

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Harriet Martineau

1802–1876 · United Kingdom

Illustrations of Political Economy (1834) • Society in America (1837) • Deerbrook (1839) • The Hour

IQ 160

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Hildegard of Bingen

1098–1179 · Germany

IQ 160

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Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné

1626–1696 · France

Her 1,120 letters, addressed to her daughter over the course of 30 years, noted for their wit and vi

IQ 160

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Mary Wollstonecraft

1759–1797

IQ 160

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Brielle Milla

b. 2012 · United States

Child Prodigy who attended the Allen Show

IQ 160

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Sofya Kovalevskaya

1850–1891 · Russia

Cauchy–Kowalevski theorem and Kovalevskaya top

IQ 156

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Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon

1635–1719 · France

Second wife of Louis XIV.

IQ 155

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Martha Graham

1894–1991 · United States

Dance and choreography

IQ 148

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Hannah Arendt

1906–1975 · Germany

The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Human Condition and Eichmann in Jerusalem.

IQ 140

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Sylvia Plath

1932–1963 · United States

The Bell Jar and Ariel

IQ 140

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Alma Deutscher

b. 2005 · England

The Sweeper of Dreams at 7, Full-length opera Cinderella at, Piano concerto at 12.

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Arfa Karim

1995–2012 · Pakistan

World's youngest Microsoft Certified Professional, 2004–2006

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Barbara McClintock

1902–1992 · United States

Work in genetic structure of maize

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Caroline Herschel

1750–1848 · United Kingdom

Being the first woman to receive a salary as a scientist and to hold a government position in Englan

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Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

1900–1979 · United States

Explanation of stellar spectra and composition of the Sun, more than 3,000,000 observations of varia

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Cleopatra

69–30 · Egypt

Being the last pharaoh of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt

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Elizabeth Blackwell

1821–1910 · England

The first woman to qualify as a physician in America; founder of America’s first medical school for

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Emily Bear

b. 2001 · United States

Composed and released her first piano album at age five

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Emmy Noether

1882–1935 · Germany

Abstract algebra • Theoretical physics • Noether's theorem • Noetherian ring • Lasker–Noether theore

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Florence Nightingale

1820–1910 · England

Pioneering modern nursing

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Frances Oldham Kelsey

1914–2015 · Canada

Preventing thalidomide from being marketed in the United States

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Grace Hopper

1906–1992 · United States

Pioneer of electronic computers: invented the first compiler; was the principal architect of COBOL,

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Henrietta Swan Leavitt

1868–1921 · United States

Leavitt's law: the period-luminosity relationship for Cepheid variables

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Hou Yifan

b. 1994 · China

Being the youngest female player to qualify for the title of grandmaster (at the age of 14 years 6 m

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Koneru Humpy

b. 1987 · India

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Inge Lehmann

1888–1993 · Denmark

Analyzed earthquake waves to discover that within our planet’s liquid core, at the earth’s center, t

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Irène Joliot-Curie

1897–1956 · France

Co-discovered how to convert stable chemical elements into ‘designer’ radioactive elements; these ha

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Jane Marcet

1769–1858 · United Kingdom

Author of Conversations on Chemistry, a unique textbook for its time written for people with little

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Jane Goodall

b. 1934 · England

Study of chimpanzees, conservation, animal welfare

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Lili Boulanger

1893–1918 · France

Attended Louis Vierne's organ classes at the Paris Conservatoire at age six

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Linda B. Buck

b. 1947 · United States

Olfactory receptors

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Marguerite Perey

1909–1975 · France

Francium discovery

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Martha Argerich

b. 1941 · Argentina

Orchestral debut at age six, being one of the best pianists in the world.

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Minou Drouet

b. 1947 · France

Arbre, mon ami

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Nettie Stevens

1861–1912 · United States

XY sex-determination system

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Priyanshi Somani

b. 1998 · India

Mental calculator

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Rachel Carson

1907–1964 · United States

Under the Sea Wind (1941) • The Sea Around Us (1951) • The Edge of the Sea (1955) • Silent Spring (1

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Rosalind Franklin

1920–1958 · United Kingdom

Structure of DNA • Fine structure of coal and graphite • Virus structures

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Ruth Lawrence

b. 1971 · United Kingdom

Lawrence–Krammer representation

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Shakuntala Devi

1929–2013 · India

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Sheila Sri Prakash

b. 1955 · India

Founding the Shilpa Architects

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Sophie Germain

1776–1831 · France

Elasticity theory and number theory (e.g. Sophie Germain prime numbers)

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Virginia Woolf

1882–1941 · England

Mrs Dalloway (1925) • To the Lighthouse (1927) • Orlando (1928) • A Room of One's Own (1929) • The W

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Tu Youyou

b. 1930 · China

Discovering artemisinin and dihydroartemisinin

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Flo and Kay Lyman

b. 1956 · United States

Their Memory • World's only female autistic savant twins

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Émilie du Châtelet

1706–1749 · France

Translation of Newton's Principia into French, natural philosophy which combines Newtonian physics w

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Gitanjali Rao

b. 2005 · United States

Water lead-level measuring device (2018)

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Akiane Kramarik

b. 1994 · United States

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Jane Austen

1775–1817 · England

Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816).

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Clara Schumann

1819–1896 · Germany

The Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 7

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Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

1648–1695 · Mexico

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Shree Bose

b. 1994 · United States

Cofounding Piper, a STEM education company creating engineering kits for children.

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Marian Bechtel

b. 1997 · United States

Creating a landmine detector

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Saheela Ibraheem

b. 1996 · United States

Enrolling into Harvard at the age of 15.

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Talia Leman

b. 1995 · United States

Creating the RandomKid organization

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Adora Svitak

b. 1997 · United States

Writing stories since the age of 6

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Anna Komnene

1083–1150 · Turkey

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Esther Lederberg

1922–2006 · United States

Lambda phage, specialized transduction, replica plating, fertility factor F, Plasmid Reference Cente

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Anne Brontë

1820–1849 · United Kingdom

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

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Natalie Zemon Davis

b. 1928 · United States

Trickster Travels (2006)

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Shirley Ann Jackson

b. 1946 · United States

Being the first African-American woman to have earned a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of

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Tawakkol Karman

b. 1979 · YE

Winning the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize

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Aung San Suu Kyi

b. 1945 · Myanmar

Activism

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Oprah Winfrey

b. 1954 · United States

The Oprah Winfrey Show

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Maya Plisetskaya

1925–2015 · Russia

Mistress of the Copper Mountain in The Stone Flower (1959); Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty (1963); Ma

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Anna Wintour

b. 1949 · United Kingdom

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Kadence Clover Hawk

b. 2008 · United States

Remarkable skateboarder

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Tatyana Afanasyeva

1876–1964 · Ukraine

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Shirin Ebadi

b. 1947 · Iran

Defenders of Human Rights Center

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Toni Morrison

1931–2019 · United States

The Bluest Eye (1970)Sula (1973)Song of Solomon (1977)Tar Baby (1981)Beloved (1987)

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Alice Munro

b. 1931 · Canada

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Wangari Maathai

1940–2011 · KE

Green Belt Movement

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Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the smartest woman in history?

According to IQ estimates, Edith Stern ranks among the highest-scoring female geniuses with an estimated IQ of 200.

How many female geniuses are in the database?

Geniuses.Club features 92 female geniuses spanning thousands of years of history.

Were there female geniuses in ancient times?

Yes. Women like Hypatia of Alexandria and Cleopatra made enormous contributions to mathematics, science, and statecraft in the ancient world, though many were historically overlooked.

Female Geniuses Throughout History