Elizabeth Rebecca Laird (December 6, 1874 – March 3, 1969) was a Canadian physicist who chaired the physics department at Mount Holyoke College for nearly four decades.
She was the first woman accepted by Sir J.
J.
Thomson to conduct research at Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory.
Laird graduated from the London Collegiate Institute in 1893, and attended University College of the University of Toronto after, due to her gender, she was denied an exhibition scholarship where she could have studied abroad.
She earned her Ph.D.
in physics and mathematics from Bryn Mawr College in 1901.
Asteroid (16192) Laird is named in her honour.