Kathleen Lonsdale

Kathleen Lonsdale

Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, DBE FRS (née Yardley) (28 January 1903 – 1 April 1971) was a crystallographer, who established the structure of benzene by X-ray diffraction methods in 1929, and hexachlorobenzene by Fourier spectral methods in 1931. During her career she attained a number of firsts for a woman scientist, including one of the first two women elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1945 (along with Marjory Stephenson), first woman tenured professor at University College London, first woman president of the International Union of Crystallography, and first woman president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.