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Scientific Biographies

Science is a human pursuit. Meet some of the people who have contributed to the history of chemistry, chemical engineering, and the life sciences.
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Percy Lavon Julian

The grandson of enslaved people, Julian overcame racial barriers to achieve scientific, business, and personal success.

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Dr. Percy Lavon Julian is pictured at the newly constructed chemistry building named in his honor at MacMurray College, 1972.
Science History Institute
Dr. Percy Lavon Julian honored at MacMurray College

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Leo Hendrik Baekeland
1863 - 1944
Arnold O. Beckman
1900 - 2004
A sepia-toned portrait of a woman with wavy hair, smiling, wearing a dark top.
Florence Ogilvy Bell
1913 - 2000
old portrait of two men in suits
Robert Bunsen
1811 - 1899
illustration from Grounds of Natural Philosophy book
Margaret Lucas Cavendish
1623 - 1673
Mildred Cohn
1913 - 2009
Rosalind Franklin
1920 - 1958
The Frees wearing lab coats and standing in a research lab. Alfred holds what seems to be an animal test subject while Helen injects something.
Helen M. Free
1923 - 2021
Helen and Alfred Free
Alfred Free
1913 - 2000
Mary Lowe Good
1931 - 2019
black and white photo of an older woman wearing glasses
Kathryn C. “Kitty” Hach-Darrow
1922 - 2020
Paula Hammond in her lab at MIT.
Paula Hammond
b. 1963
Yeast Art portrait of Fanny Angelina Hesse
Fanny Angelina Hesse
1850 - 1934
Dorothy Hodgkin in 1991 is shown seated and smiling. Her hair is half up and she is wearing a floral dress with brown panels.
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
1910 - 1994
photo from an old driver's license
Eugene Houdry
1892 - 1962
A vintage portrait of Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (left) and Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen.
Gustav Kirchhoff
1824 - 1887
A professional portrait of Donald Othmer as a young man, wearing a suit and tie.
Donald F. Othmer
1904 - 1995
black and white photo of a man in a lab
Robert W. Parry
1917 - 2006
Julius Richard Petri pictured at the Robert Koch Institute in Germany, ca. 1800s
Julius Richard Petri
1852 - 1921
Undated photo of Danish chemist Soren Sorensen working in a lab.
Søren Sørensen
1868 - 1939
Joseph John “J. J.” Thomson
1856 - 1940

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