Elsa Lewkowitsch

{{Short description|British research chemist}}

{{Infobox scientist

| honorific_prefix = Dr

| name = Elsa Lewkowitsch

| honorific_suffix = A.R.C.S.

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| birth_date = 1903

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| death_date = 1980

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| citizenship = British

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| fields = Chemistry of oils and fats

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| alma_mater = Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London

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Phyllis Regina Elsa Lewkowitsch (1903–1980), Ph.D., A.R.C.S., was a British research chemist, the daughter of Julius Lewkowitsch and Katherine Julia Morris.[http://www.glias.org.uk/news/231news.html#F Dr Lewkowitsch — oils, fats and waxes], Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society Newsletter, August 2007. Accessed 28 February 2016.

Lewkowitsch was the first female student at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London, and graduated top of her year.[https://www.imperial.ac.uk/engineering/departments/chemical-engineering/about/history/ The History of the Department], imperial.ac.uk. Accessed 28 February 2016. She continued her father's research into oils and fats, and was a contributor to the 14th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1929–30). In the 1930s she prepared a seventh edition of her father's The Chemical Technology and Analysis of Oils, Fats and Waxes (first edition 1895; sixth edition 1923), but publication was prevented by the Second World War.Frank D. Gunstone, Scientia Gras: A Select History of Fat Science and Technology (AOCS Press, 2000), p. 11.

By her will she established a bequest to found the Society of Chemical Industry's biennial Julius Lewkowitsch Memorial Lecture in memory of her father.[http://www.soci.org/awards/technical-group-awards/julius-lewkowitsch-memorial-lecture Julius Lewkowitsch Memorial Lecture], SCI. Accessed 28 February 2016.