Two Elements Named in their Honor, Five Nobel Prizes Earned

Five Great Women of Chemistry

Irene Curie

Dorothy Hodgkin - A British biochemist (b. 1910), received the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her discoveries in biomolecular structure. Her accomplishments include the development of protein crystallography and the discovery of the the structures of vitamin B12 and insulin. Among her students was former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher, who was trained in chemistry at Oxford University and specialized in x-ray crystallography. She is the only British woman to win a Nobel Prize.

Irene Joliot-Curie - Daughter of Nobel Prize winners Marie and Pierre Curie, Irene is responsible along with her husband Frederic Joliot-Curie (he accepted his wife's surname out of admiration for the Curie family. Frederic was a laboratory assistant to Marie Curie) for discovering artificial radioactivity. Both Irene and Frederic won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935.  Interestingly, Irene's mother and father also jointly won a Nobel Prize in Physics for their research in radioactivity. The Curie's hold the most Nobel Prizes of any family; Irene's mother Marie won two.

Gertrude B. Elion - Born in 1918 New York City and winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine, Elion was a trained chemist who developed research methods that led to the synthesis of numerous pharmaceuticals including the AIDS drug AZT (azidothymidine). She is the first female inductee into the National Inventors' Hall of Fame.

Lise Meitner - Born in Vienna in 1878, Lise Meitner was a member of the research group that discovered nuclear fission, an accomplishment that earned the Nobel Prize--her colleague Otto Hahn received the award and it's widely believed that she was unfairly excluded.  Her name however is honored by the naming of Element 109, Meitnerium (Mt). Craters on the Moon and Venus are named in her honor, along with an asteroid in the asteroid belt (6999 Meitner).

Marie Curie - Originally from Warsaw, Poland (b.1867) she is the winner of two Nobel Prizes--one jointly won with her husband in physics in 1903, and one in chemistry in 1911. Among her accomplishments are the discovery of polonium and radium and becoming the first female professor at the University of Paris and the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. Element 96, Curium (Cm) is named after her and her husband Pierre.

Celebrities with Chemistry Degrees

Famous People who Majored in Chemistry

• Pope Francis (Jorge Bergoglio) - The current leader of the Catholic Church holds a chemical technician's degree and briefly held a position in a laboratory prior to joining the priesthood.

• Indra Nooyi - Chief Executive Officer of PepsiCo, received a bachelor's degree in chemistry, physics and mathematics from Madras Christian College, India in 1974.

• Dolph Lundgren - Known for his role as Soviet Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, Dolph Lundgren holds a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Washington State University and a master's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Sydney.

• Angela Merkel - Current Chancellor of Germany and one of the most powerful women in the world, Merkel wrote her doctoral dissertation on quantum chemistry from the Academy of Sciences of the German Democratic Republic, 1986.

• Margaret Thatcher - The former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom graduated from Oxford with an undergraduate degree in chemistry focusing on x-ray crystallography.

• Janet Reno - Former Attorney General of the United States, Janet Reno earned a chemistry degree from Cornell University before receiving her law degree.

• Kurt Vonnegut (Dropout) - Late author of Slaughterhouse-Five attended Cornell in the 1940's to pursue a chemistry degree before eventually dropping out. 

• Frank Capra - The renowned director of It's a Wonderful Life earned a degree in chemical engineering from CalTech before gaining fame in the film industry.

Top Ten Colleges for Chemistry

Top Ten Colleges in the World to Study Undergraduate Chemistry

Criteria: Number and quality of publications, international reputation, number of Nobel laureates, employment of new graduates

 

1) Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge, Massachusetts

2) California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California

3) University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California

4) Oxford University, Oxford, England, UK

5) Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

6) University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England, UK

7) Stanford University, Stanford, California

8) Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

9) Imperial College London, London, England, UK

10) Columbia University, New York, New York