Science & invention
Isabella Karle
1921–2017 · chemist, crystallographer
Detroit-born chemist whose practical methods for solving X-ray crystal structures transformed chemistry and drug design; a National Medal of Science laureate.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Alexandria, Virginia
aged 95- Birth name
- Isabella Helen Lugoski
- Detroit years
- 1921–late 1930s
- Field
- Science & invention
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Isabella Lugoski was born in Detroit in 1921 to Polish immigrants; her father worked for the city's transit system and her mother sewed car upholstery and later ran a restaurant, where Isabella kept the books. She spoke no English until first grade, skipped two grades in the local public schools and was steered toward chemistry by a woman teacher. After a semester at Wayne University she won a scholarship to the University of Michigan, earning her bachelor's degree at nineteen and then a doctorate, and there she met her husband and collaborator, Jerome Karle. During World War II she worked on the Manhattan Project, and afterward she became the first woman on Michigan's chemistry faculty. At the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington she turned the 'direct methods' of Jerome Karle and Herbert Hauptman into practical procedures for determining molecular structures, work central to the 1985 Nobel Prize awarded to them.
Highlights
- National Medal of Science, 1995
- Developed practical direct methods for X-ray crystal structure analysis
- First woman on the University of Michigan chemistry faculty
- Worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II
- Attended Detroit public schools and Wayne University
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · late 1930s
Wayne State University
She spent a semester here before transferring to the University of Michigan on a scholarship.