ThinkHer

The modern world celebrates innovation as a universal triumph, yet it is often designed with an unspoken assumption: that its users are able-bodied, sighted, mobile, and neurologically typical. People with disabilities frequently encounter environments, technologies, and institutions that do not account for their needs. As a result, they are not only forced to adapt to systems never built for them, but are often compelled to invent solutions to survive, study, work, and live independently. When Louis Braille lost his sight as a child in 19th-century France, existing reading systems for blind people were slow, impractical, and designed without true user insight. Rather than accept intellectual dependence, Braille developed a tactile writing system that allowed blind readers to access language quickly, independently, and efficiently. His invention did more than improve literacy—it reshaped education, autonomy, and cultural participation for blind communities worldwide. Many breakthroughs...

My first encounter with the concept of ecofeminism was during my bachelor’s degree, in an English literature elective. Until then, my ideas of feminism, environmental questions, and scientific debates sat in separate compartments—each treated as though it belonged to a different intellectual world. But the day we read Vandana Shiva’s work as part of the English coursework, ecofeminism offered a language that pulled these strands together. It argued that the exploitation of nature and the oppression of women were not distinct injustices but expressions of the same systems of power—structures built on extraction, hierarchy, and the devaluation of labour and knowledge. As I read and wrote more about gender, politics, and science over the years, the depth of those connections became clearer. Ecofeminism did not merely place women and the environment side by side; it revealed how deeply intertwined our social, political, ecological, and scientific worlds are. What happens to land is insepar...

Clara Belle Williams was the first African-American graduate of New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. To understand the significance of this, we need to look more closely at what it was like to be a black woman in the early 1900s. It was a time when the very idea of education was a privilege withheld by both race and gender. It was also a world where information technology was still in its infancy, so there was no Google, YouTube or online classes. Knowledge was confined behind classroom or library doors, allowing entry to only those deemed worthy of access. To learn meant persistence: walking miles to schools that lacked resources, relying on scraps of secondhand books, and enduring open hostility from institutions that insisted you didn’t belong. In that climate, the act of studying was not just about curiosity; it was an act of defiance.  Clara Belle Drisdale Williams,  From the exhibition:  New Mexico’s African American Legacy: Visible, Vital,...

The first semester during my undergraduate years, there was a  “History of Physics” course. The syllabus was basically a list of scientists stretched from Aristotle to Einstein, a sweeping arc of minds that had shaped the discipline. The biographies we read were neatly arranged on a timeline of progress, their personal lives mostly stripped of social context. It was a history of achievements, not of people. These were tales of individual brilliance, where obstacles existed mainly to be overcome. And in this, I first recognized the pattern of what scholars now call the “superscientist” narrative: an individual—usually male—who triumphs over adversity to push the boundaries of knowledge. When women did appear, their stories followed the same arc but with a twist. Their struggle wasn’t against poverty or bad luck, but against patriarchy itself. Think of how we tell the stories of Marie Curie, Janaki Ammal, or Rosalind Franklin—as models of resilience, who not only conducted pathbreaki...

Through the work we’ve done in ThinkHer, a pattern begins to emerge: a woman’s insistence on shifting what’s accepted as normal. Whether it’s in how they studied, taught, moved through institutions, or lived outside them, these women didn’t just make space for themselves—they redefined what that space could be. Belle da Costa Greene , Mary Somerville , Kamala Sohonie , Rukhmabai Raut —their names resurface time and again, not only for what they achieved, but for how deliberately they lived.  For women, even the most groundbreaking titles rarely ensured entry into the spaces they truly sought. Yet, these women, in their own ways, managed to shape and carve out those very spaces. Laura Maria Caterina Bassi Veratti (Laura Bassi), too, belongs in this line. Portrait of Laura Bassi by Carlo Vandi Laura Bassi’s career began at a time when the very idea of a woman engaging in scientific thought—let alone being recognized for it—was rare and often met with resistance. She was born in 1711 ...

When we were debating names for our ThinkHer platform, we tossed around several ideas, 'Steminist' being one of them. At the time, we thought our work would center on women in science and technology. But as we began researching, we kept stumbling upon women who had transformed their worlds through knowledge, resistance, creativity, and care—a trail of complex, brilliant women who expanded our curiosity beyond any single field. That’s why we chose the name "ThinkHer"—to open up space for the many ways women have shaped the world, often in silence, often erased, but always with intention. Belle Greene’s 1915 portrait at home; Paul Thompson photo for a news story on NYC high-salaried women. Courtesy: Getty/Bettmann. We read about Fatima al-Fihri , who founded the world’s first university, and Savitribai Phule , who fought relentlessly for women’s right to education in 19th-century India. Each story expanded our vision and reminded us that brilliance takes many forms—acro...

The history of science traditionally focuses on a narrow narrative — one centered on the figure of the “great man”: a lone genius, male and white, who, through insight and intellect, transforms the world. This version of history not only misrepresents the deeply collaborative nature of scientific advancement but also sustains a long legacy of erasure — obscuring the contributions of women, people of color, and entire intellectual traditions beyond the Western world. During the Islamic Golden Age (which interestingly overlaps the " dark ages" according to Eurocentric history of science), scholars across the Muslim world built a vibrant and rigorous scientific tradition. They analyzed, critiqued, corrected, and expanded the ideas they inherited from Indian, Chinese, Egyptian, and Greek civilizations. This period saw major advances in mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and engineering. Innovations such as algebra, surgical instruments, observatories, and complex astronomical devi...

I had heard of Bertha Lutz before—as a women’s rights activist, a leader in Brazil’s suffragist movement, and one of the four women who signed the UN Charter in 1945, the document that officially established the United Nations. That’s how she’s usually remembered: a fierce feminist, a diplomat, someone who stood her ground at the world’s most important political tables. But what surprised me was where else her name shows up—not in laws, monuments or even street names, but in frogs and lizards!! It turns out Bertha Lutz was not only a political force, but also a trained biologist and naturalist. Before her name became tied to international diplomacy, she was studying amphibians at the Sorbonne and working as a researcher at Brazil’s National Museum. Her background in biology wasn’t a footnote—it shaped the way she thought, worked, and fought. She approached activism with the same discipline and curiosity she applied to science. I’m often struck, in conversations with fellow researchers,...