In 1939, Elsie Kokes graduated at the top of her class at Catholic University of America, but she struggled to find steady employment as a chemist—because she was a woman. Today, her great-niece, anthropologist Christina Warinner, has developed groundbreaking techniques for studying ancient DNA, teaches at Harvard University, and leads a research group at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. Today Warinner (bottom right), says she "owes a debt of gratitude to the women who struggled before me, who blazed the trails that I now follow. I am proud to be able to fulfill the dreams they were denied.” Science interviewed Warinner and eight other trailblazers who show that scientists, no matter their differences, are all ultimately “people working together on a problem.”