Leila Aboulela is a Sudanese writer, born in Egypt, she grew up in Khartoum, Sudan where she attended the Khartoum American School and Sister School.
In 2000 she won the Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story The Museum. Her novel The Translator was nominated for the Orange Prize in 2002, and was chosen as a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times in 2006.
Leila has a Masters degree in statistics from the London School of Economics.
Born in New Orleans in 1916, Ruth Benerito studied at Sophie Newcomb College, the women’s college of Tulane University, earning a B.S. in chemistry in 1935. She received her M.S. from Tulane in 1938, and her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1948.
During the second world war, Benerito developed an intravenous fat emulsion that could be used for intravenous feeding, contributing to the care of long-term medical patients.
In 1953 she patented the method to produce wrinkle free cotton, probably saving the American cotton industry. Throughout her career, she has received over 55 patents and many honors, including the Garvan Medal from the American Chemical Society and the Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award.
After her retirement from research with the United States Agricultural Dept., she continued teaching Chemistry until the age of 81.
Marina Berlusconi is the daughter of Italy’s billionaire Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi. Marina had already obtained the post of Deputy Chair in a London boutique by the age of 18.
She holds several top positions in her father’s media empire, including being the Chairman of Italy’s largest magazine publisher, Mondadori.
She was been ranked among the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business outside of the U.S. by Fortune magazine for six years running (2001 – 2006), and ranked by Forbes as one of the 100 Most Powerful Women three times.
Architect Born Iraq, 1950 First Woman to Win a Pritzker Architecture Prize (2004)
Iraqi-born Zaha Hadid may be known more for the buildings she has designed that have NOT been built than those that have.
Likewise, though her name and her work may not be widely recognised by the general public, she is most certainly an icon in the world of architecture. She is lauded for her avant-garde, surreal and modernistic building designs such as the Phaeno Science Center.