1910-1994

English Chemist and Crystallographer

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin was a pioneer in the use of x-ray crystallographic methods for the determination of crystal and molecular structures and is widely regarded as the founder of protein crystallography. She both developed the x-ray crystallographic methodology and used it to solve the molecular structures of a number of complex biologically important molecules. She also served as a much-admired mentor and role model for several generations of xray crystallographers throughout the world.

Dorothy Crowfoot was born in Cairo, Egypt. Her father was an archeologist and her mother an artist. She was educated in England and received two degrees from Somerville College of Oxford University, a B.A. in 1931 and a B.Sc. in 1932. She studied chemistry at Oxford and did her first crystallographic studies as an undergraduate. In 1933, she continued her studies at Cambridge University under the direction...