Elizabeth Wagner Reed was an American geneticist and one of the first scientists to work on Drosophila speciation. She taught women's studies courses and had a particular interest in research aimed at recovering the history of nineteenth-century women scientists. Born in the Philippines to a Northern Irish nurse and an American civil servant, she grew up in Carroll, Ohio. After earning bachelor's, master's, and PhD degrees from Ohio State University, she became a teacher with an interest in genetics. In the 1940s, she worked with her husband on plant genetics at the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station. After he was killed in action during World War II, she returned to Ohio and conducted studies on penicillin at the Ohio State Research Foundation.

Eunice Newton Foote was an American scientist, inventor, and women's rights campaigner. She was the first scientist to confirm that certain gases warm when exposed to sunlight, and that therefore rising carbon dioxide levels could increase atmospheric temperature and affect climate, a phenomenon now referred to as the Greenhouse effect. Born in Connecticut, Foote was raised in New York at the center of social and political movements of her day, such as the abolition of slavery, anti-alcohol activism, and women's rights. She attended the Troy Female Seminary and the Rensselaer School from age 17–19, gaining a broad education in scientific theory and practice.