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In 2021, Tarzana Treatment Centers, Inc. (TTC) celebrates fourAmerican female trailblazers to commemorate International Women’s Day on March 8th and Women’s History Month, which lasts from March 1st until March 31st. As an integrated healthcare provider that supports under-serviced populations, TTC fully backs global efforts for women’s rights. Given TTC’s thirteenlocations in Southern California, we choose to honor four North American women that have been essential trailblazers in 2020.

“Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a Covid-19 world”is 2021’s International Women’s Day theme as designated by The United Nations.

Celebrating and HonoringAmerican Female Trailblazers

Indeed, worldwide, countless women continue to fight on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. They also are fighting for gender equity during this crisis. Hence, TTC is proud to celebrate the best the United States has to offer. Without question, the four American female trailblazers fight to achieve an equal future for all genders. Bytaking action, they provide a true inspiration.

Within the pandemic’s microcosm, yet also going well beyond universal and historical proportions, these American female trailblazersrepresent the epitome of achievement.

First American Female Trailblazer – Avesta Rastan

As a California-based scientific designer and medical illustrator ofIranian and Canadian heritage, Avesta Rastan decided to positively use her graphic talents at the start of the pandemic. She believes science is not finished until it is communicated. Thus, as a North American female trailblazer, she felt a responsibility to communicate the science of the pandemic.

Fueled by this feeling, the talented artist creates a detailed infographic of exactly how COVID-19 affects the body. Releasing it for free on Twitter, the infographic quickly goes viral. Now, it is available to download in 18 languages on her website. As Ms. Rastan told the BBC,“Science communication is so key to society. When you understand something, you’re empowered to try to change it or to mitigate the risk.”

Second American Female Trailblazer –Amanda Gorman

When a 22-year-old AfricanAmerican woman becomes the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, it is a big deal. Reading in front of President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the entire country during the inauguration, she delivers an original poem, “The Hill We Climb.” Expressing the national need for unity and healing in a divided nation. In her poem, she expressesprofound statements, such as, “It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.”

Amanda Gorman inspires young girls of color across the nation and the world by reciting with such a strength of character and conviction. She shows how any achievement is possible if you believe in yourself and work hard. At the same time, recently, she publicly revealed how a security guard followed her for several blocks after leaving a retail store. According to the white middle-aged guard, Ms. Gorman looked suspicious. Such a duality of experiences shows how far we have come and how far we still have to go.

Third American Trailblazer – Dr. Jennifer Doudna

A biochemist at UC Berkeley, Dr. Jennifer Doudna won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing the CRISPR-Cas9 genetic scissors with her co-winnerand French researcher Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier of the Max Planch Institute. A revolutionary technology that can rewrite DNA in cells, the incredible advancement allows for the treatment of genetic diseases like sickle cell anemia and muscular dystrophy.

TheCRISPR-Cas9 genetic scissorsmodify a person’s DNA with a previously unimagined precision on a cellular level. Indeed, this innovation is globally recognized as a revolutionary development in science.Dr. Jennifer Doudna feels a great responsibility to use such scientific innovation and achievement to break through glass ceilings and radically improve worldwide healthcare.

As Dr. Doudna writes in A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution, “The power to control our species’ genetic future is awesome and terrifying. Deciding how to handle it may be the biggest challenge we have ever faced… (However) just because we are not ready for scientific progress does not mean it won’t happen.”

Fourth American Trailblazer – Dr. Jennifer Ghez

An astronomer and physics professor at UCLA in Los Angeles, Dr. Andrea Ghez is the fourth woman in history to win a Nobel Prize in Physics. She follows in the footsteps of the iconic Marie Curie, the first woman to win the prize in 1903. Sharing the prize with Reinhard Genzel from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, the two astrophysicistsmade an incredible discovery. Using the best telescopes, they found a massive black hole at the very center of the Milky Way galaxy. So massive in size, the black hole is a million, even a billion times bigger than any other ever seen.

Using some of the world’s largest and most powerful telescopes to peer through many light-years of interstellar gas and dust, the scientists chose to focus on the orbits of stars at the galaxy’s center. Thus, they found the black hole that greatly affected anything even close to its center. Hence, the black hole is haloed by the light of stars being dragged into its orbit.

Celebrating her success and connecting it to the cause of women worldwide, Dr. Ghez says about women, astronomy, and her remarkable career, “I’m delighted to be part of the change—the change being more women visibly succeeding because I think that’s an important way in which we encourage the next generation… As an astronomer, I get to ignore the details of the things that we don’t understand. There’s a lot of work that we can do on scales that we do understand.”

In the bright light of such achievements, what Tarzana Treatment Centers does understand is American female trailblazers’ importance. Such women pave a path to success for future generations of young women who might change the world.