Career
In 1924, she joined the crystallography research team headed by William Henry Bragg at the Royal Institution. After her marriage, Lonsdale worked at the University of Leeds in the late 1920s. During the early 1930s, she cared for her small children nearly full time.
In 1934, Lonsdale returned to work with Bragg at the Royal Institution as a researcher. She was awarded a DSc from University College London in 1936 while at the Royal Institution. In addition to discovering the structure of benzene and hexachlorobenzene, Lonsdale worked on the synthesis of diamonds. She was a pioneer in the use of X-rays to study crystals. Lonsdale was elected as one of the first two women Fellows of the Royal Society in 1945 (the other was the biochemist Marjory Stephenson).
In 1949, Lonsdale became a professor of chemistry and the head of the Department of Crystallography at University College, London. She was the first tenured woman professor at that college, a position she held until 1968 when she was named Professor Emeritus.
Read more about this topic: Kathleen Lonsdale
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“Work-family conflicts—the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child—would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“In time your relatives will come to accept the idea that a career is as important to you as your family. Of course, in time the polar ice cap will melt.”
—Barbara Dale (b. 1940)
“They want to play at being mothers. So let them. Expressing tenderness in their own way will not prevent girls from enjoying a successful career in the future; indeed, the ability to nurture is as valuable a skill in the workplace as the ability to lead.”
—Anne Roiphe (20th century)