Celebrating Women in STEM – Trivia

Get ready to power up your brain with a celebration of brilliance! This week on the Dorky Geeky Nerdy Trivia Podcast, we’re honoring the incredible contributions of Women in STEM—the scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and tech pioneers who have shaped our world with innovation, creativity, and determination.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4vPS3SvJuqYznH4Ypcqp3L

Dive into 30 thought-provoking trivia questions spanning three levels—Dorky (easy), Geeky (medium), and Nerdy (hard)—that highlight trailblazers from Ada Lovelace to Katherine Johnson, from Marie Curie to modern-day game changers. Whether you’re passionate about science, technology, engineering, or math, or just love a smart challenge, this episode offers a fun, inspiring, and enlightening journey through history and discovery.

Join us as we celebrate the women who broke barriers, solved complex problems, and continue to inspire the next generation of innovators.

To all the women out there slinging code, tapping beakers, and peering into the vast reaches of the universe, this episode is dedicated to you.

If you are a woman in STEM, give us a shoutout and share the episode with your colleagues. Let them all know that they aren't forgotten. We'll strive to do more Women-focused episodes in the future, so stick with us. Have an episode idea? Send it our way. We'd love to hear from you.

When you're done with Women in STEM Trivia, we need your feedback about this show.

Want to learn more about Women in STEM? Got a fledgling scientist as a daughter or niece? Be sure to subscribe and listen to these extra credit podcasts this week.

Episode Intro

Welcome back to the Dorky Geeky Nerdy Trivia Podcast. I’m your host Brian Rollins. As we wrap up National Women’s Month, we wanted to give a shoutout to women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics or STEM for short. Far too often, their historic contributions aren’t well-known and we’d like to remedy that.

As always, we’ll give you three rounds of ten questions. Each round is harder than the last. If you need rules or a score sheet, visit DorkyGeekyNerdy.com/rules to grab them for free.

And that covers the intro, let’s get to the trivia.

The Dorky Round

[toggle title="1. What famous primatologist had her love of animals inspired by a stuffed chimpanzee named Jubilee?"]Jane Goodall. She still has Jubilee in her London home.[/toggle]

[toggle title="2. Who was the first American woman in space?"]Sally Ride[/toggle]

[toggle title="3. The programming language, Ada is named after who?"]Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, the first computer programmer[/toggle]

[toggle title="4. What woman, known mostly as a movie star of the 1930's and 40's, also invented a remote-controlled communications system for the US military?"]Hedy Lamarr. Her frequency hopping theory is critical to today's Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.[/toggle]

[toggle title="5. Who stepped in as field engineer and technical leader of the Brooklyn Bridge's construction when her husband became paralyzed?"]Emily Roebling[/toggle]

[toggle title="6. Who was the first woman US Surgeon General?"]Jocelyn Elders. She was also the first African American to hold the position.[/toggle]

[toggle title="7. Who was the first woman to cross the Atlantic solo in an airplane?"]Amelia Earhart[/toggle]

[toggle title="8. In February 2020, Christina Koch set what record?"]Most days in space of any woman in a single mission. She did it on her first mission to space.[/toggle]

[toggle title="9. Who was the NASA 'human computer' that recently passed away at the age 101?]Katherine Johnson. She was one of the featured people in the movie and book, Hidden Figures.[/toggle]

[toggle title="10. What astronaut was the first black woman in space and had a guest appearance on Star Trek: The Next Generation?"]Mae Jemison[/toggle]

The Geeky Round

[toggle title="1. What early mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher was killed in 415 CE?"]Hypatia[/toggle]

[toggle title="2. Who is the only woman in history to win two Nobel Prizes?"]Marie Curie. She's also the first woman to win the Nobel Prize.[/toggle]

[toggle title="3. What computer scientist has both a Cray computer and a guided-missile destroyer named after her?"]Admiral Grace Hopper[/toggle]

[toggle title="4. Who was the first woman in space?"]Valentina Tereshkova. She was a Soviet cosmonaut that went into space in 1963. She is the only woman to fly solo in space.[/toggle]

[toggle title="5. Rosalind Franklin's work led to the discovery of the molecular structure of what?"]DNA[/toggle]

[toggle title="6. Though ignored by the Nobel Prize committee, Jocelyn Bell Burnell is credited with first observing what astronomical phenomenon?"]Pulsars[/toggle]

[toggle title="7. Who is credited with creating the term "Software Engineering" while developing the software for the on-board systems of the Apollo spacecraft?"]Margaret Hamilton[/toggle]

[toggle title="8. Albert Einstein's first wife was a physicist and mathematician. What was her name?"]Mileva Marić[/toggle]

[toggle title="9. What astronaut has logged the most days in space for any American?"]Peggy Whitson. She accrued 665 days in space. The most for any American and the most of any woman, ever. For context, 665 days is roughly the equivalent of a round trip to Mars.[/toggle]

[toggle title="10. What primatologist was played by Sigourney Weaver in Gorillas in the Mist?"]Dian Fossey[/toggle]

The Nerdy Round

[toggle title="1. Who wrote the book, Silent Spring, which led to the banning of DDT."]Marine Biologist, Rachel Carson[/toggle]

[toggle title="2. Who was the first woman Space Shuttle commander?"]Eileen Collins. She commanded the Columbia in July 1999.[/toggle]

[toggle title="3. What Austrian-born physicist fled the Nazis to Sweden and has element 109 named after her?"]Lise Meitner. She and her team discovered nuclear fission.[/toggle]

[toggle title="4. Who won a Nobel Prize for Medicine for the discovery of Genetic Transposition?"]Barbara McClintock. She's the only woman to win the prize unshared in that category.[/toggle]

[toggle title="5. What daughter of a Nobel Prize winner helped create France's first nuclear reactor?"]Irene Joliot-Curie, Marie Curie's daughter.[/toggle]

[toggle title="6. What inventor was known as 'The Lady Edison' during the 1920s and 30s?"]Beulah Henry. She invented a doll with movable arms, a vacuum ice cream freezer, and a typewriter that made multiple copies without carbon paper.[/toggle]

[toggle title="7. What German Mathematician wrote the paper, 'Theory of Ideals in Ring Domains'?"]Emmy Noether[/toggle]

[toggle title="8. The French Academy of Sciences has an award for mathematics named after whom?"]Sophie Germain[/toggle]

[toggle title="9. What animal scientist wrote about her own experiences with Autism in Emergence: Labeled Autistic?"]Temple Grandin[/toggle]

[toggle title="10. Before becoming Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher studied what science?"]Chemistry[/toggle]

Episode Outro

Pencils down. How did you do? If you didn’t do well, we’ve put up links to resources about women in STEM. These are fascinating histories that are well-worth exploring.

We’ll be back next Wednesday for more trivia. Here’s your clue:

“In what decade did Frankenstein conquer the world and the planet went to the apes?”

You can follow the show on Facebook and Twitter for more trivia fun. And say Hi. But from 6 feet away, please.

This has been the Dorky Geeky Nerdy trivia podcast. I’m your host, Brian Rollins. Thanks for listening.

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