Studying the ocean can be a difficult task but there are women in marine science who have excelled in their careers and pathed the way for other women to study the ocean.

Maria Mitchell was the first woman to work for the U.S. Coast Survey. Mitchell was also the first American woman to work as a professional astronomer, the first American astronomer to discover a comet, the first woman to work for the U.S. government outside of an administrative capacity, and the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Mitchell became an international celebrity in the science world after discovering “Miss Mitchell’s Comet.” The King of Denmark awarded her a gold medal with the Latin inscription “Non Frustra Signorum Obitus Speculamur et Ortus” ("Not in vain do we watch the setting and rising of the stars”).

Mitchell and her father, who was an astronomer, joined the U.S. Coast Survey to work on a project that established cardinal points or latitude and longitude in the U.S. and North America in 1845.

After leaving the U.S. Coast Survey, Mitchell worked for the U.S. Naval Observatory’s Nautical Almanac Office until 1868, then went on to teach at Vassar College in New York, where she also served as director of the Vassar College Observatory.

Marie Tharp was also a scientist who paved the way for women in science. Tharp was responsible for one of the most significant bathymetric discoveries ever made. She was a draftsman for Bruce Heezen and others working at New York’s Lamont Geological Observatory in 1952.

One of her most notable accomplishments was that she proved the validity of continental drift (the idea that all of the continents were once connected) by discovering and mapping a rift valley in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which lined up perfectly with a separate earthquake map of the same geographic area.

These are only some examples of women who made strides in the science world. Since their discoveries, there have been a number of other women who have made their own discoveries and left their mark in the world of science.