:Isabella Karle

{{Infobox scientist

|name = Isabella Karle

|image = Isabella-karle-nrl-2009.jpg

|caption = Karle at her retirement in 2009

|birth_name = Isabella Helen Lugoski

|birth_date = {{birth date|1921|12|02}}

|birth_place = Detroit, Michigan, U.S.

|death_date = {{death date and age|2017|10|3|1921|12|02}}

|death_place = Alexandria, Virginia, U.S.

|resting_place = Columbia Gardens Cemetery
Arlington, Virginia, U.S.

|residence =

|field = Crystallography

|work_institutions =

|alma_mater = University of Michigan

|doctoral_advisor = Lawrence O. Brockway

|doctoral_students =

|known_for =

|author_abbrev_bot =|author_abbrev_zoo =

|influences =

|influenced =

|prizes = {{no wrap|Garvan–Olin Medal {{small|(1976)}}
Gregori Aminoff Prize (1988)
Bower Award (1993)
National Medal of Science (1995)}}

|footnotes =

|signature =

|spouse = {{marriage|Jerome Karle|1942}}

|children = 3

}}

Isabella Helen Karle ({{nee|Lugoski}}; December 2, 1921 – October 3, 2017) was an American chemist who was instrumental in developing techniques to extract plutonium chloride from a mixture containing plutonium oxide. For her scientific work, Karle received the Garvan–Olin Medal, Gregori Aminoff Prize, Bower Award, National Medal of Science, and the Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Award (which is the Navy's highest form of recognition to civilian employees).

Early life

File:Jerome-Isabella-Karle-NRL.jpg at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, where they worked for many years.]]File:Karle Retirement.jpg (left foreground) at their 2009 retirement ceremony]]

Isabella Helen Lugoski was born in Detroit, Michigan, on December 2, 1921, the daughter of immigrants from Poland. Her father, Zygmunt Lugoski, worked for the city's transportation system. Her mother, the former Elizabeth Graczyk, was a self-educated woman who supported her family as a seamstress of automobile upholstery and later by running a restaurant–eventually with Isabella's help,{{Cite journal |last=Schlick |first=Tamar |date=July 2021 |title=Isabella L. Karle: A Crystallography Pioneer |journal=DNA and Cell Biology |volume=40 |issue=7 |pages=843–847 |doi=10.1089/dna.2021.0372 |issn=1557-7430 |pmc=8309433 |pmid=34129390}} who became the restaurant's accountant after discovering a love for numbers.{{Cite news |last=Chang |first=Kenneth |date=2017-10-26 |title=Isabella L. Karle Dies at 95; Findings on Molecules Helped Husband Win Nobel |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/obituaries/isabella-l-karle-dead-findings-on-molecules-helped-husband-win-nobel.html |access-date=2025-04-04 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}} She attended the local public schools and skipped two grades in elementary school, despite not speaking English until the first grade. While at school, a female chemistry teacher led her to her pursuit of the field as a career.Staff. [http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCEWWW/Features/eChemists/Bios/Karle.html " profile"], Journal of Chemical Education. Accessed September 22, 2009. She also drew inspiration from a biography of Marie Curie. She attended Wayne University (now Wayne State University) in Detroit for a semester before obtaining a four-year scholarship to the University of Michigan, where she majored in physical chemistry and received a Bachelor of Science at age 19, followed by Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in the field. During her graduate work she met her future husband and scientific collaborator, Jerome Karle, in a physical-chemistry lab where alphabetical seating dictated that the two of them would sit next to each other; the two were both advised in their Ph.D. studies by Lawrence Brockway.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1985/karle-bio.html|title=Jerome Karle - Biographical|website=Nobelprize.org|access-date=10 March 2017}}{{cite book|last1=Kelly|first1=Cynthia C.|title=Remembering the Manhattan Project: Perspectives on the Making of the Atomic Bomb and Its Legacy|date=27 January 2005|publisher=World Scientific|isbn=9789814481786}}{{rp|89}} The pair married in June 1942 after Isabella completed her M.S. degree.{{Cite web |title=Isabella Karle - Nuclear Museum |url=https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/profile/isabella-karle/ |access-date=2025-04-04 |website=ahf.nuclearmuseum.org |language=en-US}}

Career

Karle worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II, where she developed techniques to extract plutonium chloride from a mixture containing plutonium oxide.

She joined the United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) after the end of the war. At the NRL, her husband Jerome developed "direct methods" for analyzing structure of crystals. Their experimental apparatus for electron diffraction for characterizing the structures of gaseous molecules provided invaluable insights into key principles that led them later to their successful treatment of the phase problem in X-ray crystallography. However, for many years the crystallographic community remained skeptical about their utility.{{Cite web|url=https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/web/2017/10/Isabelle-Karle-dies-age-95.html|title=Isabella Karle dies at age 95 {{!}} Chemical & Engineering News|website=cen.acs.org|access-date=2018-12-19}} Isabella Karle was the first person to apply the method. She developed the symbolic addition procedure that connects the theoretical "direct method" apparatus and actual X-ray diffraction data. These contributions advanced the field of X-ray crystallography by enabling determination of the structure of crystals. This technique has played a major role in the development of new pharmaceutical products and other synthesized materials.

In 1985, Jerome Karle was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, together with mathematician Herbert A. Hauptman, for developing direct methods for analyzing X-ray diffraction data. The Nobel Committee ignored Isabella's crucial role in solving the problem in practice, and Jerome Karle and many other members of the crystallography community strongly believed that Isabella Karle should have shared the prize.

Karle was the first to publish the structures of many important molecules and received many honors. She was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (1978) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1993).{{Cite web |title=Isabella L. Karle |url=http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/deceased-members/53970.html |access-date=2022-04-01 |website=www.nasonline.org}}{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter K|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterK.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|access-date=July 29, 2014}} She was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1992.{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Isabella+L.+Karle&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2022-04-01 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}} In addition, she received the National Medal of Science from President Clinton (1995), various awards, and eight honorary doctorates.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nrl.navy.mil/Media/News/releases/isabella-karle-renowned-crystallographer-and-chemist-dies-95/|title=Isabella Karle, Renowned Crystallographer and Chemist, Dies at 95|date=2017-10-24|website=News|language=en|access-date=2018-12-19}}

As her successes became known, Isabella brought young women into her laboratory and taught them crystallography. And, as her fame for solving the structures of many difficult crystals spread throughout the community, collaborators across the world sent her samples of their crystals in glass vials. Her models of frog toxins are exhibited at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC.

On July 31, 2009, Karle and her husband retired from the Naval Research Laboratory, after a combined 127 years of service to the United States Government, with Karle joining the NRL in 1946, two years after her husband. Retirement ceremonies for the Karles were attended by United States Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, who presented the couple with the Department of the Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Award, the Navy's highest form of recognition to civilian employees.McKinney, Donna. [http://www.nrl.navy.mil/pao/pressRelease.php?Y=2009&R=58-09r "Jerome and Isabella Karle Retire from NRL Following Six Decades of Scientific Exploration"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927041917/http://www.nrl.navy.mil/pao/pressRelease.php?Y=2009&R=58-09r |date=2011-09-27 }}, United States Naval Research Laboratory press release dated July 21, 2009. Accessed September 22, 2009.

Death

File:Grave of Jerome Karle (1918-2013) and Isabella Lugoski Karle (1921-2017).jpg]]

She died on October 3, 2017, at a hospice in Alexandria, Virginia{{cite news |title=Isabella L. Karle, chemist who helped reveal structure of molecules, dies at 95 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/isabella-l-karle-chemist-who-helped-reveal-structure-of-molecules-dies-at-95/2017/10/20/c778f268-b4ee-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html |newspaper=Washington Post }} at 95 from a brain tumor. She was exposed to radiation during her work on the Manhattan project.{{cn|date=April 2025}}

Personal life

Karle was married to Jerome Karle, with whom she had three daughters, all of whom work in scientific fields:[http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1985/karle-autobio.html Jerome Karle: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1985], Nobel Prize. Accessed September 22, 2009.

Louise Karle (born 1946) is a theoretical chemist
Jean Karle (1950) is an organic chemist
Madeleine Karle (1955) is a museum specialist with expertise in the field of geology.

Awards

Garvan–Olin Medal (1976)
Rear Admiral William S. Parsons Award (1988)
Gregori Aminoff Prize (1988)
Bijvoet Medal of the Bijvoet Center for Biomolecular Research (1989) {{cite web|url=http://bijvoet-center.eu/bijvoet-medal/|title=Bijvoet Medal|publisher=Bijvoet Center for Biomolecular Research|access-date=2017-09-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170912191415/http://bijvoet-center.eu/bijvoet-medal/|archive-date=2017-09-12|url-status=dead}}
Bower Award (1993)
National Medal of Science (1995)
Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Award (2009)

References

External links

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPhZ20AqFkY 2015 Video interview with Isabella Karle by the Atomic Heritage Foundation] Voices of the Manhattan Project
[http://manhattanprojectvoices.org/oral-histories/isabella-karles-interview-2005 2005 Video Interview with Isabella Karle by the Atomic Heritage Foundation] Voices of the Manhattan Project
{{Cite news

| last = Massa

| first = Antonia

| title = Isabella Karle's Curious Crystal Method

| work = Narratively: Human stories, boldly told

| access-date = 2013-12-05

| date = 2013

| url = http://narrative.ly/the-nonagenarians/isabella-karles-curious-crystal-method/

}}

Category:1921 births

Category:2017 deaths

Category:American crystallographers

Category:Scientists from Detroit