Wilkins went so far as to share Franklin's research without telling her with James Watson and Francis Crick-even though they were technically his competitors, funded by Cambridge University. Their relationship got worse and worse the longer they worked together. Meanwhile, Franklin was under the impression that she'd be completely independent. When she was hired in 1951 at King's College, London, to work on DNA, she clashed with researcher Maurice Wilkins, who had thought she was his assistant, not his equal. One reason she left Cambridge to work on coal was that her doctoral supervisor did not like her and believed women would always be less than men. Rosalind Franklin's male colleagues were hostile and undermined her research.įranklin had a direct nature and was unwilling to be traditionally feminine. Her research formed the basis for her 1945 doctoral dissertation it and several of her later papers on the micro-structures of carbon fibers played a role in the eventual use of carbon composites in air- and spacecraft construction. Rosalind Franklin's research on coal aided the aerospace industry.Īfter graduation, Franklin got a job at the British Coal Utilization Research Association (BCURA), where she researched coal and charcoal, and how it could be used for more than fuel. Oxford University started granting women's degrees in 1920. Rosalind Franklin's university refused to acknowledge her scholastic achievements for years.Īzeira, Wikimedia Commons // Public Domainĭespite Newnham College having been at Cambridge since 1871, the university refused to accept women as full members until 1948, seven years after Franklin earned the title of a degree in chemistry. The full scope of Clarke's work is still unknown, due to government secrecy. Clarke would go on to be recruited for the war effort, cracking the German Enigma codes. Rosalind Franklin attended college with another woman who didn't get full credit for her work.īletchley Park cryptanalyst Joan Clarke was a few years older than Franklin, but they were both at Newnham in the late 1930s. Her aunt and mother finally managed to change his mind, and she enrolled at Cambridge's all-female Newnham College in 1938. However, her father, Ellis, a merchant banker, objected to women going to college and refused to pay her tuition. She decided she wanted to become a scientist at 15, and passed the admissions exam for Cambridge University. She was one of five children born into a wealthy Jewish family. Rosalind Elsie Franklin was born in London in 1920.

Rosalind Franklin discovered her calling early, but her father didn't believe that women should be college-educated.

Here are 15 facts about the noted scientist.

Today would have been the 100th birthday of English chemist Rosalind Franklin, a brilliant and dedicated scientist best known for the honor denied her: the 1962 Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA.

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