Michalina Stefanowska

She began her academic career in Grodno. She was able to pursue her dreams of continuing education thanks to the Rapperswil scholarship. It was given to the Polish youth who wished to study abroad. Stefanowska was the second woman who got it. In 1883 she began studying biology at the University of Geneva. Then she continued her education at the Sorbonne in Paris where she studied the arcana of psychology and psychiatry.

In 1897 the Director of the newly-established Solvay Institute of Physiology at the Free University of Brussels invited her to work for them. She was working there with yet another Polish scientist, and privately her life partner, Józefa Joteyko. Together they carried out research on pain and anaesthetics. The results of their research were summed up in a book titled Psycho-physiologie de la douleur, which received an award from the Academy of Sciences in Paris. Back then the female research team was something of a curio in the academic world.

Ludwika Dobrzyńska-Rybicka

She began her education at a school in Lviv thanks to her family’s financial support. In 1887 she passed her teacher certification exams and began working as a home tutor. She was also an active publicist. She felt a constant need to learn more, which is why she decided to begin studies at the University of Zurich. In 1909 she received from that University a PhD in philosophy. The next stops on the path of her academic career were Leuven, the College de France in Paris and Oxford in Great Britain.