In honor of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, learn more about some of the notable female figures that have conducted chemistry at the University of Chicago.
Dr. Gloria Long Anderson (PhD, ‘68) is the Fuller E. Callaway Professor of Chemistry at Morris Brown College, and Vice President for Academic Affairs. She has served as Interim President of Morris Brown, and as Vice Chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. She is known for her studies of fluorine-19 and solid rocket propellants.
Anderson is the daughter of Elsie Foggie Long and Charley Long, sharecroppers with a tenth and third grade education, respectively. She attended segregated public schools, including the Altheimer Training School, and was a good student who skipped grades, graduating high school at age 16, in 1954. She received a Rockefeller Fellowship between 1956 and 1958, and graduated as the valedictorian from Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College in 1958 summa cum laude with a degree in chemistry.
She began her doctoral studies at the University of Chicago in 1965 and worked with Leon Stock on the nuclear magnetic resonance and CF infrared frequency shifts of fluorine-19. Throughout her time there, she was mentored by Thomas Cole and tutored other chemistry students. Anderson received her physical organic chemistry Ph.D. in 1968.
Dr. Zhenan Bao (PhD ‘95) is Department Chair and K.K. Lee Professor of Chemical Engineering, and by courtesy, a Professor of Chemistry and a Professor of Material Science and Engineering at Stanford University. Bao founded the Stanford Wearable Electronics Initiate (eWEAR) in 2016 and serves as the faculty director.
Bao started down this path as a graduate student in the lab of chemistry professor Luping Yu, developing a way to synthesize conducting and semiconducting polymers. After earning her doctorate, she went to work for Bell Labs, which was starting a program to use organic materials to make thin-film transistors, key components for most electronics. (Learn More)
Dr. Laurie Butler was the first female tenured professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Chicago and is currently a professor emeritus. Butler is known for her experimental work testing the Born–Oppenheimer approximation on separability of nuclear and electron motions.
Laurie Butler earned a BS in chemistry from MIT and a PhD from UC Berkeley before joining the University of Chicago chemistry faculty. (Learn More)
Dr. Liselotte Closs was an influential chemist who worked in the labs of UChicago (1927-2012). She and Gerhard Closs were a formidable husband-and-wife team of chemists who, together and apart, made influential discoveries in the field at Chicago in the late 20th century.
Liselotte and Gerhard Closs met while studying chemistry at the University of Tübingen, in the lab of future Nobel laureate Georg Wittig. Gerhard moved to America to accept a postdoctoral position at Harvard University, where he married Lilo in 1956. In 1957, Gerhard took a position as an assistant professor in the University of Chicago’s Department of Chemistry, and the couple moved to the Midwest.
Because University anti-nepotism rules prevented wives from holding positions in the same departments as their husbands, Liselotte worked as an unpaid volunteer in Gerhard’s lab. It was an intellectually fruitful partnership; the couple coauthored 15 papers between 1959 and 1969, including pioneering studies of chemically induced dynamic nuclear polarization and the use of magnetic resonance to study chemical reactions. (Learn More)
Dr. Miriam Freedman (MS ‘03, PhD ‘08) is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and Associate Department Head for Climate and Diversity at Penn State University. Freedman studies aerosol particles that impact climate through their interactions with light, clouds and various other chemicals in the atmosphere.
Freedman has been honored with an American Chemical Society (ACS) Early Career Award in Experimental Physical Chemistry and an NSF Career Award in 2014. She has published more than 47 scientific papers in journals such as ACS Earth and Space Chemistry and Journal of Physical Chemistry.
Dr. Karen Kerr (PhD ‘95) is the Senior Managing Director for Advanced Manufacturing at GE Ventures, General Electric.
Kerr became fascinated by inventing, investing, and intellectual property near the end of her degree program. Kerr turned down a National Science Foundation post-doctoral position in chemistry to become a member of the first class of Kaufman Fellows, a program that identifies and develops emerging leaders in venture capital.
She went on to serve as Senior Director of New Ventures and Alliances at the University of Southern California (USC) Stevens Center for Innovation where she was responsible for accelerating the formation of startup companies out of university research. Before joining USC, Karen held senior business development roles at Intellectual Ventures in both the Invention Investment Fund and the Invention Development Fund. Karen has two decades of experience in venture investing and in developing technology based businesses. She is also the founder of Agile Equities LLC, a venture development company specializing in emerging technology companies. (Learn More)
Dr. Reatha Clark King (SM’60, PhD’63) Dr. King is a chemist, leader in higher education, and corporate executive.
Dr. Reatha Clark King was born April 11, 1938 in Pavo, Georgia. She received her early education in a one-room schoolhouse at Mt. Zion Baptist Church. After graduating as valedictorian of Moultrie High School for Negro Youth, she attended Clark College in Atlanta on a scholarship, where she earned a double BS in chemistry and mathematics. A Woodrow Wilson Fellowship brought her to the University of Chicago for her MS in Chemistry, which she obtained in 1960. She remained for her PhD under Ole Kleppa, graduating in 1963.
Dr. King then became the first female African American research chemist at the National Bureau of Standards, where she won the Meritorious Publication Award for a paper on fluoride flame calorimetry. Dr. King became President of Metropolitan State University in Minneapolis. Her eleven-year tenure in this position is remembered for substantial expansion of the college, as well as increased recruitment of women and minorities. Following a stellar career in research and academia, Dr. King spent the next fourteen years in industry as Vice President of the General Mills Corporation and President/Executive Director of the General Mills Foundation. (Learn More)
Dr. Ruby K. Worner (BS 1921, MS 1922, PhD 1925) was known as an accomplished chemist who advanced the science of textiles. She worked first as a chemist in the Bureau of Home Economics at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and then, for the next eleven years, in the textile division of the National Bureau of Standards. In 1940, she returned to USDA and continued her research on textiles.
Worner’s experience in the federal government afforded her an opportunity to observe and analyze both the opportunities and challenges for female chemists. In September 1939, she spoke at a Symposium on Training and Opportunities for Women in Chemistry, sponsored by the American Chemical Society’s Division of Chemical Education, and her remarks offered both practical advice and an honest appraisal of what women faced. (Learn More)
Dr. Hoylande Young (PhD 1928) was a renowned chemist. During World War II she worked at the Manhattan Project's Metallurgical Laboratory. After the war she became the first woman to be appointed as a division head at the Argonne National Laboratory, and the first woman to chair the Chicago Section of the American Chemical Society.
She earned a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago, writing her thesis on "Stereoisomeric Bromoimino Ketones" under the supervision of Julius Stieglitz. (Learn More)