WThis is a Timeline of women in Antarctica. This article describes many of the firsts and accomplishments that women from various countries have accomplished in different fields of endeavor on the continent of Antarctica.
WArnarulunnguaq (1896–1933), a native Greenlander, was a key member of Knud Rasmussen's Fifth Thule Expedition (1921–1924) which crossed the Northwest Passage by dog sled. She was one of the two who accompanied Rasmussen from the Hudson Bay to Alaska, preparing meals and keeping skins and furs in order throughout the two-year journey. As a result, she was the first woman to complete the long Arctic journey from Greenland to the Pacific.
WLiv Ragnheim Arnesen is a Norwegian educator, cross-country skier, adventurer, guide, and motivational speaker. Arnesen led the first unsupported women’s crossing of the Greenland Ice Cap in 1992. In 1994, she made international headlines becoming the first woman in the world to ski solo and unsupported to the South pole. – a 50-day expedition of 745 miles (1,200 km).
WFelicity Ann Dawn Aston is an English explorer and former climate scientist.
WAnn Bancroft is an American author, teacher, adventurer, and public speaker. She was the first woman to successfully finish a number of arduous expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1995.
WLouise Arner Boyd was an American explorer of Greenland and the Arctic, who wrote extensively of her explorations, and in 1955 became the first woman to fly over the North Pole privately chartering a DC-4 and crew that included aviation pioneer Thor Solberg.
WJosefina Castellví Piulachs is a Spanish oceanographer, biologist and writer. Castellvi Peak on Hurd Peninsula, on Livingston Island in Antarctica is named in her honour. In 1984 she was the first Spaniard to participate in an international expedition to Antarctica. She received her bachelor's degree in 1957 and a PhD in biological sciences at the University of Barcelona in 1969. In 1960 she started working for the Institute of Marine Sciences. In addition, she conducted research at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and was a delegate in Catalonia for two years (1984-1986).
WIngrid Christensen was an early polar explorer. She was known as the first woman to view Antarctica and land on the Antarctic mainland.
WThe first women to fly to Antarctica were the American flight attendants Patricia (Pat) Hepinstall of Holyoke, Colorado and Ruth Kelley of Houston, Texas who were members of the crew on the Pan American flight which landed at the US McMurdo Station on October 15, 1957.
WElisabeth Isaksson is a Swedish glaciologist and geologist who has researched polar climate history on the basis of ice cores. She has also studied snow and ice pollution on the Norwegian island of Svalbard and has participated in award-winning European projects on Antarctic climate change.
WMaria Vasilyevna Klenova was a Russian and Soviet marine geologist and one of the founders of Russian marine science and contributor to the first Soviet Antarctic atlas.
WCornelia Lüdecke (1954) is a German polar researcher and author. A leading figure in the history of German polar research and the history of meteorology and oceanography, she founded the Expert Group on History of Antarctic Research within the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), institutionalising historical study and reflection for the Antarctic scientific community. Her books, among others, about the Schwabenland Expedition to Antarctica during the Third Reich and Deutsche in der Antarktis are milestones in the history of polar research publications.
WDr. Jerri Lin Nielsen was an American physician with extensive emergency room experience, who self-treated her breast cancer while stationed at Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica until she could be evacuated safely.
WVanessa Audi Rhys O'Brien is a British and American mountaineer, explorer, aquanaut, author and former business executive. On June 12, 2020, O'Brien became the first woman to reach Earth's highest and lowest points, receiving a Guinness World Record. She became the first American woman to climb K2 and the first British woman to climb K2 on 28 July 2017, successfully leading a team of 12 members to the summit and back on her third attempt. She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) and a Member of The Scientific Exploration Society (SES).
WIrene Carswell Peden is an American engineer who has contributed much to the field of electrical engineering. She is known for being the first American woman scientist to live and work in the interior of the Antarctic, where she developed new methods to analyze the deep glacial ice by studying the effect it has on radio waves.
WMaria Pronchishcheva was a Russian explorer.
WLillemor Rachlew née Enger (1902-1983) was one of four Norwegians who were the first women to set foot on the Antarctic mainland. After their landing in 1937 the Four Ladies Bank in Prydz Bay was named after them. On an earlier voyage to Antarctica Rachlew took photographs which were published in 1934. Some sections from her diary were preserved and these are the earliest examples of a woman's writing about her travels in Antarctica.
WKate Rice was a Canadian prospector, adventurer, and writer from Ontario who homesteaded, prospected and mined in northern Manitoba. She garnered widespread attention for her adventurous life, brilliant mind, statuesque beauty, and for succeeding in the mineral industry, which very few women were engaged with at the time.
WJackie Ronne was an American explorer of Antarctica and the first woman in the world to be a working member of an Antarctic expedition (1947–48). She is also the namesake of the Ronne Ice Shelf.
WNamira Salim born in Karachi, is a Pakistani adventurer and artist based in Monaco and Dubai. On the recommendation of the Pakistani government, she was in 2011 appointed as an honorary consul of Pakistan to Monaco, following her efforts to establish diplomatic relations between the two countries. She is the first Pakistani to have reached both the North Pole and the South Pole. Salim is the only Pakistani among the first 100 aspiring space tourists to purchase a ticket for Virgin Galactic's future commercial space liner.
WCecilie Skog is a Norwegian adventurer. She studied and worked as a nurse, but since summiting Mount Everest in 2004, she has worked as a professional adventurer, guide and lecturer.
WJunko Tabei was a Japanese mountaineer, an author, and a teacher. She was the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest and the first woman to ascend the Seven Summits, climbing the highest peak on every continent.
WTaqulittuq was an Inuk interpreter and guide. She and her husband Ipirvik worked alongside Arctic explorer Charles Francis Hall and joined him in his search for Franklin's lost expedition in the 1860s, as well as the Polaris expedition to reach the North Pole
WWang Jing is a Chinese mountaineer, author, entrepreneur and member of The Explorers Club in the United States. Wang Jing is best known for her feat in becoming the fastest woman in the world to complete the Explorers Grand Slam in 143 days and the fastest woman to climb Seven Summits. The Explorers Grand Slam involves reaching the highest peak on every continent plus at a minimum of skiing the last degree (111 km) to the North and South poles. Wang Jing recorded this adventure in her book Silence of the Summit, which was published in English in December 2018.
WAnnick Wilmotte is a Belgian Antarctic researcher, best known for her research on the diversity and ecology of Antarctic cyanobacterial microflora. A genus of Antarctic cyanobacteria, called Wilmottia was named after her in recognition of her work in this field.