Mary Odile Cahoon OSB (July 21, 1929 – October 2, 2011) was an American Benedictine nun who was among the first women to do research in Antarctica.
In 1974, Mary Odile Cahoon and Mary Alice McWhinnie became the first women scientists to overwinter at the main American base in Antarctica, McMurdo Station, with 128 men,[1] although the first woman to be there in the winter was in 1947 and other countries had taken women to Antarctica for some years previously.[2]