2015 has been full of scientific and technological innovation. From self-teaching robots to gene editing technology, here are the women who made it happen.

Stefanie Tellex  – One of the most compelling stories of the year was Baxter, a robot. Once Baxter has learned something, it can ‘teach’ other robots. Baxter was designed by Stefanie Tellex, assistant professor in the Computer Science Department at Brown University.

Melissa Little – Head of the Kidney Research Laboratory in Melbourne, Melissa was responsible this year for the growth of mini-kidneys from stem cells.

Jennifer Doudna – Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats — or CRISPR — is a gene-editing technology. CRISPR has been variously described as a “game changer” and a “disruptor” in biomedicine. And Jennifer Doudna has been described by the New York Times as “a pioneer”.