This thread as moved on a bit rapidly so will try to cover several points in one.
All these women are multiple award winners with substantial sales (by SFF standards) - with the exception of Yoon Ha Lee who I included in error as a mathematical writer. Bujold, Le Guin, Cherryh, Willis in particular will be in the airport bookshops alongside the men.
Recommendations - rather than one, suggesting some options - pick whichever feels closest to your tastes.
Cherryh - I like Cyteen which is a companion piece to the Company Wars series (or pick any book from the series - Downbelow might work).
Bujold's series are more of a saga and focus a lot on how tech developments change peoples' lives in a space age universe so may be too people focused.
Asaro's Quantum Rose. You will love it or hate it.
Nagata - Nanotech, post humanism, military SF topics. Try the Last Good Man or the Nanotec series (Vast - they don't need to be read in order)
Vinge - you might like Catspaw. Not her hardest SF (but her older books have some godawful dated covers which neatly illustrate some of the sexism in SF)
Regarding a couple of other points:
She belongs to an age in SF where outlandish stories of odd civilizations on the other side of the universe were the norm
Like Dune?
The best SF authors are scientists, engineers, computer programmers - people who know what they are talking about in every detail of a story when they write about a space station, relativistic speeds, or AI. This was true when Asimov and Arthur C Clarke were the kings of the genre, and it's still true today.
Gibson and Herbert were non scientists, Tchaikovsky studied psychology and went into law, Stephenson was a geographer (albeit with a side interest in computing), Dick was a liberal arts drop out, Asimov was a biochemist.
Catherine Asaro is a Harvard physicist but has achieved the traditional accolade from male critics to read research which was actually written by one Dr C Asaro.
Subject expertise will reduce the research needed, is likely to stimulate the interest but I wouldn't say its necessary, any more than the engineers need degrees in sociology or anthropology to build convincing worlds.
Sexism is still very strong in SF and the fandom. Even successful women writers are pushed by publishers to make more key characters male, to do more "feelings" - it would be funny if it wasn't so annoying. When Le Guin wrote Tehanu in the 90s she was very well established but still pushed by the publisher to "recover" Ged's mage power and criticised by fans for not so doing.
When you consider how little even successful genre writers earn its not surprising that they need to bend toward what sells/what publishers will accept. This is also an issue for minority writers who are pushed to write "minority" books.
Regarding "where is the female Neal Stephenson".
One of the SF groups I was on years ago used to have "where is the female Greg Egan" in the FAQ because it was so frequently asked. The answer was "in the same room as the other male Greg Egan". Some writers are decidedly individual - Egan certainly was. Stephenson - yes I'd say so as well but I'm a heretic who prefers Cryptonomicon to Snowcrash and to me his books do shout "west coast white bloke" in the writing. I love them but I don't think there will be a female Stephenson unless she wrote from that perspective and culture.
Sorry this ended up longer than I intended!