Maria Sibylla Merian
Maria Sibylla Merian (2 April 164713 January 1717) was a German-born naturalist and scientific illustrator, a descendant of the Frankfurt branch of the Swiss Merian family. Merian was one of the first naturalists to observe insects directly.
María Currea Manrique
María Currea Manrique was born on 28 May 1890 in Bogotá, Colombia to General Aníbal Currea and Hersilia Manrique de Currea. Because of her family's wealth, she traveled widely through Europe and the United States, learning other languages. Since women were forbidden higher education in Colombia at that time, she obtained a nursing degree from Presbyterian Hospital in New York City and then went on to study philosophy and humanities at the University of the Sorbonne in Paris earning a doctorate. Currea married Ruperto Aya, a veteran of the Thousand Days' War, who was instrumental in opening doors for women's rights. In 1930, a group of women, led by Georgina Fletcher attempted to gain citizens' rights for Colombian women. Up to that time women's wages were the property of their husbands, fathers or brothers and she had no guardianship over her children. The women were unsuccessful in 1930, but two years later, Aya introduced Currea to President Enrique Olaya Herrera, whom she and the other women pressured to help change the citizenship laws for women in Colombia. Passage of Law 28 in 1932 recognized women's citizenship for the first time, in Colombia.