The history of scientific discovery has largely emphasized the work of male researchers and scientists. This has meant that many important contributions by women remain unknown and unappreciated. This is known as the “Matilda Effect,” first described by Matilda Joslyn Gage, a 19th-century American activist.

The Matilda Project is a web-based educational resource designed by Shehryar (Shay) Saharan and Shehroze Saharan and built by a team of writers and illustrators. It features entries on the life, work, and impact of women in science. Each article is accompanied by a series of illustrations. I had the chance to illustrate an article on Dr. Mary Maynard Daly (1921-2003), the first African-American woman in the United States to earn a doctorate in chemistry. Her postdoctoral work on the role of RNA during protein synthesis was cited by James Watson (who co-received the Nobel Prize for work on the double helix structure of DNA) in his Nobel Prize lecture. She made crucial contributions to the link between cholesterol and atherosclerosis, other aspects of cardiovascular health, and how muscles uptake creatine. She was also a teacher, mentor, and advocate for women and minority students in her field.

I wanted to approach this series of illustrations as a way to celebrate the fullness of Dr. Daly’s life. The accompanying article provides a sketch of her life and includes her experiences in high school, graduate school, research and teaching career, advocacy, and personal life. I wanted to highlight the intricate details of her education and work, while also showing the richness of her personal life. Using photographs of Dr. Daly, Columbia University, and lab environments of the time, I constructed views from her life as a student and, later, as a professor. I referenced histology images from Daly’s research papers (and those of her contemporaries) to create the images seen by her students through their microscopes. These images are magnified, and overlay the base illustration of Daly and her students in the lab. Similarly, other illustrations in the series use details collected from her scientific work as the basis for expansive, abstract environments.

This entry in The Matilda Project was written by Dr. Shelley Wall, and can be found in full here.