Under the Lens examines the work of women scientists in biology and chemistry at MIT beginning with Ellen Swallow Richards, MIT’s first woman student, through the present day, when many women scientists hold leadership positions at the Institute. The women featured in the exhibit are scientists whose work engages with the materials of our world on a molecular level, using the lens of a microscope. At the same time, women’s ability to work as scientists and academics has been scrutinized in the lens of public opinion since Victorian-era debates about co-education.

Visit the digital exhibit.