Esther Marley Conwell was a pioneering American physicist who studied properties of semiconductors and organic conductors, especially transport. She is best known for her work elucidating how electrons travel through semiconductors, an accomplishment that helped revolutionize modern computing. He was born on May 23, 1922 in New York, United States. She obtained a B.A. from Brooklyn College in 1942, an M.S. from the University of Rochester in 1945, and a Ph.D. in 1948, from the University of Chicago, all in Physics. Conwell was a fellow of the IEEE and the American Physical Society. She was also a member of the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She had received the Achievement Award of the Society of Women Engineers and an Honorary D.Sc. from Brooklyn College. She received the 1997 IEEE Edison Medal for "fundamental contributions to transport theory in semiconductor and organic conductors, and their application to the semiconductor, electronic copying and printing industries." In 2010, Conwell received the prestigious National Medal of Science from President Barack Obama, for "her broad contributions to understanding electron and hole transport in semiconducting materials, which helped to enable commercial applications of semiconductor and organic electronic devices, and for extending her analysis to studying the electronic properties of DNA.