Recently, I did an activity where I called out the first names of famous scientists in front of a crowd. The audience was asked to shout out each scientist’s last name in response. I noticed that when I called out famous women who had accomplished remarkable things in STEM, the crowd was pretty silent because they didn’t know who these amazing women were. One of these scientists was Dorothy Hodgkin and I want to tell you a bit about her so that the next time I run that activity, someone will call out her last name!   

So, who was Dorothy Hodgkin?

Dorothy Hodgkin was an English chemist. When she was very young, she showed an interest in chemistry and crystal formation. This interest was nurtured by her parents and her teachers at school. In fact, Dorothy was even allowed to join the boys for chemistry class which was uncommon at the time. Her early love of chemistry is what led her to pursue the field at university.

What did Dorothy discover?

In 1964, Dorothy Hodgkin won the Nobel Prize. She was the third woman to have received this honour and was awarded the Prize for helping to discover the structure of penicillin and Vitamin B12. To do so, she used a method called crystallography. This technique uses X-ray images to show scientists the structure of a biomolecule. Hodgkin worked for many years with other scientists, collecting and studying these images. Her incredible discoveries became the foundation for other scientific breakthroughs. For example, later in her career, Hodgkin discovered the structure of insulin which led to new treatments for diabetes.