November 23, 1997 – Death of Lucy Pickett, chemist renowned for her research on organic molecules by X-ray crystallography and ultraviolet absorption spectroscopy

She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Mount Holyoke in South Hadley, Massachusetts, in 1925, received an M.A. in Chemistry two years later, and a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1930, with a thesis on the study of the effects of X-rays on chemical reactions and the structures of organic compounds.

He mainly devoted himself to teaching in the university's Chemistry Department in his hometown until his retirement in 1968, except for short periods. In 1945, she got a position as Professor of Chemistry.

In the 1930s, he did a postdoc in London with the crystallographer and Nobel Prize winner William Bragg. He received a research grant to work with the spectroscopist Víctor Henri at the University of Leija (Belgium) and with George Kistiakowsky at Harvard (United States).

Between 1947 and 1948, she was a visiting professor at the University of Berkeley and collaborated with Linus Pauling.

Her recognition was not only for her scientific activities but also for her work as an educator and her publications in spectroscopy and education.

If you want to know more about this scientist, click on the following link: Lucy Weston Pickett