Great thread, but it misses, as is usual, Goeppert Mayer’s contribution to chemistry in the theory of isotope effects. The story as I understand it was that during the Manhattan project Jacob Bigeleisen was working on a theory of isotope effects on a chalk board, and Goeppert https://twitter.com/mcnees/status/1144598916517597184

Mayer came in, saw it, and said something to the effect of “You should make this part quantum mechanical instead of classical, like this.” After the war Bigeleisen and Mayer published the key paper in isotope effect history. Weirdly, Bigeleisen gets most of the credit, to the

point that the main equation is called “the Bigeleisen equation,” but Mayer was the senior author on the paper. Now Bigeleisen was a terrific scientist, NAS, and a kind old man when I knew him, and I have a signed copy of the Bigeleisen Mayer paper that I cherish, and he did go

on to develop the field in chemistry (other equations that we use daily go back to Bigeleisen), but as important as the area is outside of chemistry these days, leaving Mayer out seems strange to me.
One more story: a few years ago I was at a symposium where a speaker brought

up the work of Joseph Mayer, Maria’s husband, and mentioned that “his wife was also a scientist.” Argh. So when it was my turn to talk I spent my introduction showing what “also a scientist” meant and how we used this smallest part of her work constantly.