Women and the Sciences: Visualizations and Datasets

This page collects visualizations and datasets from the “New Digital Methods for Understanding the Impacts of Early Women Writers on the Development of Science and Philosophy” initiative.

This project is a London-Boston, collaborative project between Northeastern University London, the PolyGraphs project, the NULab, and the Women Writers Project (the project PIs are Sarah Connell, Julia Flanders, Brian Ball, and Peter West). The project examines and highlights the impacts of early women scientists and natural philosophers on the development of these disciplines during a formative period of the Enlightenment. The project takes Margaret Cavendish’s (1623–1673) engagements with the Royal Society as a case study in the relation between early women’s writing and early institutional science.

Network Analysis and Simulations

Network analysis and computer network simulations evaluating the status of women in early modern intellectual networks, working with data from the Six Degrees of Francis Bacon project. View

Blog posts

The project team has published several blog posts related to this initiative:

• “Analyzing Scientific Discourse in the Works of Margaret Cavendish and Her Contemporaries” by Mel Williams
• “The WWP Begins Research on the Impacts of Early Women Writers on Science and Philosophy” by Colleen Nugent McLean

Symposium

On October 27, 2025, the project hosted a symposium in partnership with The Philosopher. This event featured Athene Donald, Francesca Peacock, and Jennifer Park in conversation with Peter West. These experts in women’s writing in philosophy and science—both past and present—discussed how and why women were marginalised and excluded from these disciplines, challenges and obstacles faced by those taking on the task of recovering women’s work, and the vital importance of developing historical narratives centering on women. View the event recording.