This is a book about women who have sailed - beyond the barriers of "women's work" and gender stereotypes, to chart new courses in the sciences. They have made significant, often groundbreaking achievements in widely varying fields including nuclear physics (Maria Goeppert Mayer), pharmaceutical chemistry (Gertrude Elion), industrial medicine (Alice Hamilton), psychiatry (Karen Horney), cytogenetics (Barbara McClintock), and many others. Twenty-three women, six of them Nobel Prize winners, are profiled in this informative and inspiring work.