| 1 | Name: | Dr. Isabella L. Karle | |
| Institution: | Naval Research Laboratory | ||
| Year Elected: | 1992 | ||
| Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 102. Chemistry and Chemical Biochemistry | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Deceased | ||
| Birth Date: | 1921 | ||
| Death Date: | October 3, 2017 | ||
Isabella Karle (née Lugoski) was born in Detroit, Michigan. She was the daughter of Zygmunt and Elizabeth Lugoski who had emigrated from Poland. After attending the public schools in Detroit, she was awarded a scholarship to the University of Michigan where she earned the B.S. Chem, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees with a speciality in physical chemistry. After serving as a chemist on the atomic bomb project at the University of Chicago (1944), she was an Instructor in Chemistry at the University of Michigan. After World War II, she joined the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington where she maintained an active research program as a member of the Laboratory for the Structure of Matter until July 2010. Dr. Isabella Karle's early research concerned the structure analysis of molecules in the vapor state by electron diffraction. She was instrumental in the development of a quantitative procedure by which vibrational motion as well as bond lengths and bond angles in molecules can be determined accurately. In the fifties, her research was directed toward crystal structure analysis. She developed practical procedures based on the theoretical work developed in the Laboratory for the Structure of Matter at NRL for the determination of phases directly from the measured intensities of x-ray reflections. These practical procedures have become adopted world-wide and have been essential to the explosive output of crystal structure determinations that are indispensable to the solution of problems in a number of scientific disciplines: chemistry, biochemistry, biophysics, mineralogy, material science, pharmaceuticals, drug design and medicinal chemistry, for example. There are now in excess of 20,000 published analyses per year, as compared to about 150 per year in the early 1960s. Isabella Karle personally had applied the direct method of phase determination to the early elucidation of molecular formulae and determination of conformations of steroids, alkaloids, frog toxins, photorearrangement products caused by radiation, nanotubes and particularly peptides. This type of structural information has provided the basis for computational chemistry, conformational analyses and the prediction of folding for new substances. She published more than 350 papers. The work of Dr. Karle was recognized by a number of awards and honors. Among them have been election to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. She received the Garvan Award of the American Chemical Society, the Hillebrand Award, the WISE Lifetime Achievement Award, the Gregori Aminoff Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Bijvoet Medal from the Netherlands, Robert Dexter Conrad Award (ONR), the Department of Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Award, and eight honorary doctorate degrees, the most recent from the Jagiellonian University (Krakow, Poland). Her first award, however, was presented by the Society of Women Engineers. She had served as President of the American Crystallographic Association, on several editorial boards of journals and a number of national committees concerned with various aspects of chemistry and crystallography. In 1993, Dr. Karle was awarded the prestigious Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science (Franklin Institute), and in 1995 she received the National Academy of Sciences Award in Chemical Sciences and the National Medal of Science from President Clinton. Other recognitions include her biography in "Women in Chemistry and Physics" and in "The Door in the Dream," a symposium in her honor at an American Chemical Society meeting, and honors at the New York Academy of Sciences. She received the 2007 Bruce Merrifield Award for Peptide Science. Isabella Karle died on October 2, 2017 at the age of 95. | |||