Born: Terril, Iowa, November 8, 1926, B. S. Iowa State College, Ames, Iowa, B. S. 1948; Ph. D. 1951. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Chemist, 1952-53; Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, 1953-78; Los Alamos National Laboratory, Division Leader Chemistry-Nuclear Chemistry, 1979-82 and Division Leader, Isotope and Nuclear Chemistry 1982-84. Came to Berkeley in 1984.
August 2013: Professor Emerita of graduate school, Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley & Faculty Sr. Scientist, Nuclear Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Advisor for graduate students and chair or member of Ph. D.qualifying exam committees and reader on dissertations. Many invited lectures on “Atom-at-a-Time Chemistry”, the “Periodic Table of the Chemical Elements”, and “Discovery of the Heaviest Elements”.
Served as member of many national committees including the selection committee for the National Medal of Science 2006-9, National Academies Comm. on Nuclear Forensics 2007-2009; DOE’s Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee subcommittees on Nuclear Facilities and Advanced Nuclear Transformation Technology 2006-2009; Air Force Technical Applications Center’s Expert Panel to provide technical review of R & D programs related to Nuclear Debris Collection and Analysis program (2000-present); Member, Advisory Board for Asian Pacific Society of Radiochemical Science (APSORC’09) and Keynote Speaker, Napa Valley, U. S. A., December 2009.
Research interests have included: rapid chemical separation of short-lived fission products; separation chemistry of lanthanide, actinide and transactinide elements; search for heavy elements in nature; studies of radionuclide migration in geologic media; studies of spontaneous fission process and elucidation of symmetric spontaneous fission; heavy ion reactions and production of new neutron-rich heavy element isotopes; atom-at-a-time studies of the chemical and nuclear properties of the heaviest elements. More than 280 publications in peer-reviewed journals.
Received B. S. and Ph. D. degrees from Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa. Chemist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (1952-1953). Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (1953-84): Division Leader of Chemistry-Nuclear Chemistry Division, 1979-82 and of Isotope & Nuclear Chemistry Division, 1982-1984. Prof. of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, and Leader of Heavy Element Nuclear and Radiochemistry Group, LBNL, (1984-91). Co-founder of Seaborg Institute for Transactinium Science at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LNLL) 1991; Charter Director (1991-1996), Sr. Research Advisor (1996-2007).
Fellow: Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters; American Association for the Advancement of Science; American Institute of Chemists; American Physical Society; American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Honorary Doctorates: Clark University, USA (2000); University of Bern, Switzerland (2001).
Major awards: NSF Sr. Postdoctoral Fellowship, Institute for Atomic Energy, Kjeller, Norway, 1964-65; Guggenheim Fellowship, LBNL, 1978-79; American Chemical Society (ACS) Award for Nuclear Chemistry, 1983 (first woman recipient); ACS Garvan-Olin Medal, 1990; U. S. National Medal of Science, 1997; ACS Priestley Medal, 2000; Sigma Xi Proctor Prize for Scientific Achievement, 2003; John V. Atanasoff Research and Discovery Award, Iowa State University, 2007; 2010 Hevesy Medal Award.
Nuclear Chemistry Actinide, Transactinides & Superheavy Elements
Rapid chemical separation of short-lived fission products; separation chemistry of lanthanide, actinide and transactinide elements; search for heavy elements in nature; studies of radionuclide migration in geologic media; studies of spontaneous fission; heavy ion reactions; production reactions for new neutron-rich heavy element isotopes; atom-at-a-time studies of chemical and nuclear properties of the heaviest elements including first chemical studies of elements 106 (seaborgium) through 108 (hassium); use of automated systems such as SISAK and its flowing liquid-scintillation system to study chemical properties of very short-lived isotopes; atom-at-a-time studies of chemical and nuclear properties of actinides and transactinides; use of the Berkeley Gas-filled Separatr (BGS) as preseparator for chemical studies and identification of new heavy isotopes and elements and elucidation of their nuclear decay properties.
She has helped organize many national and international symposia in these fields as well as on the status of women in science.
