Isabel Knaggs, contributed to the development of X-ray crystallography

August 2, 1893, Durban (South Africa) - November 29, 1981, Sydney (Australia)

Isabel Ellie Knaggs attended school in London (UK) and, between 1913 and 1917, studied chemistry at Cambridge University, which admitted women at the time.

After graduating, she worked as a research assistant at the Cambridge Mineralogical Laboratory and taught geology at Bedford College.

In 1921, she began a PhD at Imperial College London (University of London) and subsequently obtained a research fellowship and joined the group of William Henry Bragg, the co-founder of the new technique of X-ray crystallography at the Royal Institution. In 1927, he obtained a permanent position at the Royal Institution.

Isabel determined the structure of numerous compounds, including that of benzyl, in collaboration with Kathleen Lonsdale, and of cyanuric triazine, a powerful explosive.

One of his most notable contributions was to establish that carbon atoms, in compounds with other atoms, adopt a tetrahedral coordination geometry. This was long before the development of Fourier synthesis techniques that allow the electron density of molecules studied by X-ray diffraction to be visualised.

She has also been credited with applying chemical concepts, such as valence and the importance of spatial configuration, to X-ray crystallography.

She also worked as a consultant for the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome and, during the Second World War, for the British Government, carrying out research on various crystal structures.

After her retirement, she was invited as a visiting professor at the Royal Institution (1963-1966 and 1974-1977).

She published numerous papers, including one with Constance Tipper (née Elam) and Berta Karlik entitled ‘Tables of the cubic crystal structure of elements and compounds’.

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