The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) established the Noether Lecture to honor women who have made fundamental and sustained contributions to the mathematical sciences. These one-hour expository lectures are presented at the Joint Mathematics Meetings each January. Emmy Noether was one of the great mathematicians of her time, someone who worked and struggled for what she loved and believed in. Her life and work remain a tremendous inspiration. The lecture is now jointly sponsored by the American Mathematical Society and the AWM and has been renamed the AWM-AMS Noether Lecture.