While there are so many more fantastic women who have graduated from both co-ed colleges and Seven Sisters, this week I decided to do some research on a few of these women, some who you may be familiar with, and others which really blow you away.

Barnard College

Alex Guarnaschelli

If you are as obsessed with the Food Network as I am, you definitely are familiar with Chef Alex. A widely known celebrity chef and executive chef at New York City's Butter restaurant, the 1991 Barnard College grad is commonly seen judging 'Chopped' and hosting a variety of cooking shows on the network.

Anna Quindlen

A bestselling author, journalist, and opinion columnist, Anna Quindlen won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1992 for her popular New York Times column, Public and Private.

Atoosa Rubenstein

Former editor-in-chief of Seventeen Magazine, and founding editor of CosmoGIRL!, Atoosa Rubenstein has made a name for herself in the world of periodicals. Columbia University honored her in 2004 by naming her one of the top 250 alumni through the ages.

June Jordan

June Jordan was an openly bisexual poet, activist, professor, and essayist who taught poetry, English, Women's Studies, and African American Studies at a wide range of institutions, such as Yale University, Sarah Lawrence College, and University of California, Berkeley.

Lauren Graham

Also known as Lorelai Gilmore, Lauren Graham graduated from Barnard College in 1988 and went on to star in popular series 'Gilmore Girls' and 'Parenthood,' and has since published her debut novel, Someday, Someday, Maybe.

Bryn Mawr College

Drew Gilpin Faust

A 1968 magna cum laude graduate of Bryn Mawr College, Drew Gilpin Faust went on to become the first female president of Harvard College in Cambridge, MA. The author of six books, she previously served as the Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania.

Emily Greene Balch

With a first-year course named in her honor, Emily Balch went on from Bryn Mawr to teach with a focus on economics and sociology at Wellesley College and become a central leader of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, for which she won the Nobel Peace Prize in the late 1940s.

Nettie Stevens

Nettie Stevens was a geneticist who discovered that X and Y chromosomes determine sex in 1906. She received her Ph.D. in cytology at Bryn Mawr College after completing undergraduate work at Westfield State University (completing the four-year program in only two years) and Stanford University. Above is the Google doodle honoring what would have been her 155th birthday.

Mount Holyoke College

Emily Dickinson

An attendee of Mount Holyoke College in the mid 1800s, Emily Dickinson is now almost universally considered to be one of the most significant of all American poets, with her extensive cache of poetry discovered after her death.

Olympia Brown

Olympia Brown was the first woman to graduate from a theological school, as well as the first female full-time ordained minister. She was also one of the few first generation suffragists who was able to vote after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.

Radcliffe College (now integrated into Harvard College)

Caroline Kennedy

Daughter of the late John F. Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy went on from Radcliffe College to become an attorney, writer, and editor. She has served on the boards of numerous non-profit organizations, and is currently the United States Ambassador to Japan.

Helen Keller

Hellen Keller was an author, political activist, humanitarian, and lecturer. She was the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree. She is now widely known for overcoming the adversity of being deaf and blind and co-founding the ACLU. She is remembered for coining the expression "Life is either a great adventure or nothing."

Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein was an openly gay author, art collector, and academic. After graduating magna cum laude from Radcliffe College, she was a student at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and then moved to Paris to host a salon, with attendees such as Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemmingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Henri Matisse. The phrase "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose" comes from one of her works.

Ursula Le Guin

Ursula Le Guin is a popular science fiction novelist and children's book author. In 2016, The New York Times described her as "America's greatest living science fiction writer."

Smith College

Gloria Steinem

Women's rights activist and author Gloria Steinem is nationally recognized as a leader and a spokeswoman for the women's rights movement since the 1960's. She is a major advocate for women's reproductive rights, and continues to write and speak on behalf of organizations that work in the interest of women across the globe.

Julia Child

Julia Child was a chef, author, and television personality. She is still well-known for bringing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. My personal favorite quote of hers is "A party without cake is really just a meeting." So true.

Vassar College

Elizabeth Bishop

A dedicated alum of Vassar College, Elizabeth Bishop was a poet and writer of short stories. She served as a Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. She then won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the National Book Award, and received the Neustadt International Prize for Literature shortly before her death.

Grace Hopper

This amazing woman you see above was a computer scientist and United States Navy Rear Admiral. She was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer in the early 1940s, and invented the first compiler for a computer programming language. Basically, she was the best thing that ever happened to the world. Such a cool lady.

Lisa Kudrow

Another graduate of Vassar College, this actress, comedian, writer and producer gained worldwide recognition for her role of Phoebe "Phoebs" Buffay on the popular sitcom 'Friends.' She won an Emmy Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards for her work on the show.

Wellesley College

Pam Melroy

A retired United States Air Force officer and a former NASA astronaut, Pam Melroy served as pilot on two Space Shuttle missions and was commander of a third mission. She then joined the Federal Aviation Administration, and is now serves as Deputy Director of the Tactical Technology Office at DARPA.

Sophonisba Breckinridge

While not a household name, Sophonisba Breckinridge was a successful lawyer, educator, and progressive activist at a time where this was unheard of. She was the first woman admitted to Kentucky bar, and, in 1904, she became the first woman to graduate from the University of Chicago Law School. She was also the first woman admitted to the Order of the Coif, an honorary legal scholastic society.

Doing all this research has made me even more intensely proud of attending a Seven Sister. While I don't expect to be held to such a high regard as the women above one day, I know that attending Bryn Mawr will give me the foundation for lifelong learning, and that is a very special thing. Here's to way more exceptional graduates from historically women's colleges in the future.