Women in Science: Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958)
Biophysicist

Franklin went to Newnham College, Cambridge and graduated in 1941, but was only awarded a degree titular, as women were not entitled to degrees from Cambridge at the time; in 1945 Franklin received her PhD from Cambridge University.

Franklin’s x-ray diffraction photographs led to the understanding of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Her colleague, Maurice Wilkins, without obtaining her permission, made available to Watson and Crick her then unpublished x-ray diffraction pattern of the B form of DNA, which was crucial evidence for the helical structure of DNA.

Aside from her x-ray work with DNA, she also work with x-rays of lipids and proteins, and also did x-ray crystallography with the tobacco mosaic virus.