18th Century
Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier (1758 – 1836)
She was the wife of Antoine Lavoisier and was expert in English, Latin and
French along with she was a trained artist under the guidance of Jacques-Louis
David. She received her training in chemistry while performing experiments with
her husband. She helped her husband in illustrating the experimental setups and
translating the contemporary text into French. She kept strict records of
Lavoisier’s procedures and records, this helped her recollect all of
Lavoisier's notebooks and chemical apparatuses, most of which survive in a
collection at Cornell University, the largest of its kind outside of Europe.
19th Century
Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842 – 1911)
She was an industrial and safety
engineer, environmental chemist, and university faculty member in the United
States. Her pioneering work in sanitary engineering, and experimental research
in domestic science, laid a foundation for the new science of home economics. She
was the founder of the home economics movement characterized by the application
of science to the home, and the first to apply chemistry to the study of
nutrition. Her work led to the first water quality standards in America and the first modern
sewage plant.
Agnes Luise Wilhelmine Pockels (1862 – 1935)
Pockels discovered the influence of impurities on the surface
tension of fluids doing the dishes in her own kitchen. Despite her lack of
formal training, Pockels was able to measure the surface tension of water by
devising an apparatus known as the slide trough, a key instrument in the new
discipline of surface science. Using an improved version of this slide trough,
American chemist Irving Langmuir made additional discoveries on the properties
of surface molecules, which earned him a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1932. Pockels'
device is a direct antecedent of the Langmuir–Blodgett trough.
Marie Skłodowska Curie (1867 – 1934)
She was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and the only woman to win the Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win the Nobel Prize in two different scientific fields. Her achievements include the development of the theory of radioactivity (a term she coined), techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes, and the discovery of two elements, polonium, and radium. Under her direction, the world's first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms using radioactive isotopes. She founded the Curie Institutes in Paris and in Warsaw, which remain major centers of medical research today. During World War I, she developed mobile radiography units to provide X-ray services to field hospitals.
Edith Ellen Humphrey (1875 – 1978)
Humphrey was the first to succeed in preparing Werner's first new series of geometrically isomeric cobalt complexes, a class of compounds that were crucial in his development and proof of his coordination theory. One of these compounds, the cis-bis(ethylenediamine)dinitrocobalt(III) bromide, was the first synthesis of a chiral octahedral cobalt complex.
Harriet Brooks (1876 – 1933)
She was the first Canadian female nuclear physicist. She is most famous for her research on nuclear transmutations and radioactivity. Ernest Rutherford, who guided her graduate work, regarded her as being next to Marie Curie in the caliber of her aptitude. She was among the first persons to discover radon and to try to determine its atomic mass.
Maud Leonora Menten (1879 – 1960)
She was a Canadian bio-medical and medical researcher who made
significant contributions to enzyme kinetics and histochemistry. She is
primarily known for her work with Leonor Michaelis on enzyme kinetics and
co-authored Michaelis–Menten equation in 1913. Menten also invented the azo-dye
coupling reaction for alkaline phosphatase, which is still used in
histochemistry. She characterized bacterial toxins from B. paratyphosus,
Streptococcus scarlatina and Salmonella ssp. that were used in a successful
immunization program against scarlet fever in Pittsburgh in the 1930s - 1940s. She
also conducted the first electrophoretic separation of blood hemoglobin proteins in 1944. She worked on the properties of hemoglobin, regulation of
blood sugar level, and kidney function.
Ellen Gleditsch (1879 – 1968)
She started her career
as an assistant to Marie Curie, she became a pioneer in radiochemistry,
establishing the half-life of radium and helping demonstrate the existence of
isotopes. At Curie's lab, Gleditsch performed a technique called fractional
crystallization, which purified radium.
Elizabeth Rona (1890 – 1981)
She was a Hungarian nuclear chemist, known for her work with radioactive
isotopes. After developing an enhanced method of preparing polonium samples,
she was recognized internationally as the leading expert in isotope separation
and polonium preparation. Between 1914 and 1918, during her postdoctoral study
with George de Hevesy, she developed a theory that the velocity of diffusion
depended on the mass of the nuclides. As only a few atomic elements had been
identified, her confirmation of the existence of "Uranium-Y" (now
known as thorium-231) was a major contribution to nuclear chemistry.
Gerty Theresa Cori (1896 – 1957)
Gerty Theresa Cori was a Austro-Hungarian-American biochemist who in
1947 was the third woman—and first American woman—to win a Nobel Prize in
science, and the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine, for her role in the discovery of glycogen metabolism.
She along with her husband discovered an intermediate compound in frog muscles
that enabled the breakdown of glycogen, called glucose 1-phosphate, now known
as the Cori ester. They established the compound's structure, identified the
enzyme phosphorylase that catalyzed its chemical formation, and showed that the
Cori ester is the beginning step in the conversion of the carbohydrate glycogen
into glucose (breaking down energy stores into a format in which they can be
used). It can also be the last step in the conversion of blood glucose to
glycogen, as it is a reversible step. Gerty Cori also studied glycogen storage
disease, identifying at least four forms, each related to a particular
enzymatic defect. She was the first to show that a defect in an enzyme can be
the cause of a human genetic disease. They even discovered how glycogen is
broken down in muscles then remade and stored as an energy source (Cori cycle).
Ida Eva Noddack (1896 – 1978)
She was a German chemist and physicist. In 1934 she was the first to mention the idea later named nuclear fission. With her husband Walter Noddack and Otto Berg, she discovered element 75, rhenium and later element 43, which was then named as Masurium. Ida Noddack was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Irène Joliot-Curie (1897 – 1956)
20th Century
Dame Kathleen Lonsdale (1903 – 1971)
She proved, in 1929, that the benzene ring is flat by using X-ray
diffraction methods to elucidate the structure of hexamethyl benzene. She was
the first to use Fourier spectral methods while solving the structure of
hexachlorobenzene in 1931. Lonsdale worked on the synthesis of diamonds. She
was a pioneer in the use of X-rays to study crystals.
Marguerite Catherine Perey (1909 – 1975)
She was a French chemist cum physicist and a student of Marie Curie. In
1939, Perey discovered the element francium by purifying samples of lanthanum that
contained actinium. Perey spent a decade sifting out actinium from all the
other components of uranium ore. She theorized that actinium was decaying into
another element (a daughter atom) and that the observed beta particles were
coming from that daughter atom. She confirmed this by isolating extremely pure
actinium and studying its radiation very quickly; she detected a small amount
of alpha radiation, a type of radiation that involves the loss of protons and
therefore changes an atom's identity. Loss of an alpha particle (consisting of
2 protons and 2 neutrons) would turn actinium (element 89, with 89 protons)
into the theorized but never-before-seen element 87. Perey named the element
francium, after her home country, and it joined the other alkali metals in
Group 1 of the periodic table of elements.Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910 – 1994)
She was a British chemist who developed protein crystallography, for
which she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964. She advanced the technique
of X-ray crystallography, a method used to determine the three-dimensional
structures of molecules. Among her most influential discoveries are the
confirmation of the structure of penicillin as previously surmised by Edward
Abraham and Ernst Boris Chain, and the structure of vitamin B12, for which she
became the third woman to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In 1969, after 35
years of work, Hodgkin was able to decipher the structure of insulin. She is
regarded as one of the pioneer scientists in the field of X-ray crystallography
studies of biomolecules, which became an essential tool in the field of
structural biology.Gertrude Belle Elion (1918 – 1999)
Rosalind Elsie Franklin (1920 – 1958)
She was an English chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), RNA (ribonucleic acid), viruses, coal, and graphite. Although her works on coal and viruses were appreciated in her lifetime, her contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA were recognized posthumously.
Marie Maynard Daly (1921 – 2003)
She was an American biochemist. Daly made important contributions in four areas of research: the chemistry of histones, protein synthesis, the relationships between cholesterol and hypertension, and creatine's uptake by muscle cells. She has even given her input in studies of arterial metabolism.
Stephanie Louise Kwolek (1923 – 2014)
She was an American chemist who is known for inventing Kevlar. She discovered the first of a family of synthetic fibers of exceptional strength and stiffness: poly-paraphenylene terephthalamide. She is well recognized for her work in polymer chemistry.
*The sources include Wikipedia, Compound Interest, and other pages on Google.
