Famous Women in science;Rosalyn Yalow essays

Famous Women in science;Rosalyn Yalow essays Born on July 19, 1921 in New York City was one of the most important American research scientists of the 20th century. Rosalyn Yalow is an inspiration to many men and women for her commitment to the education of science. Despite many challenged she never gave up and excelled in all that she aspired to be. Rosalyn was a fast learner. She was reading before she was in kindergarten and was dedicated to mathematics since she was in seventh grade. When she was at Walton high school a great chemistry teacher, Mr. Mondzak, interested her more in chemistry. However when she went to Hunter college, her interests changed to physics and later on to nuclear physics. Although her passion was science, her family thought it would be more realistic to be an elementary teacher. But after some encouragement from her physics professors, she decided to stick with physics. In September of 1940, one of Rosalyns professors, Dr Jerrold, got her a part time job as a secretary for Dr Rudolf Schoenheimer, a leading biochemist at Colombia Universitys college of Physicians and Surgeons. In February 1941, she transferred jobs to become a teaching assistant in physics at the University of Illinois. Because Rosalyn grew up at a time when women were assumed to be less intellectually qualified than men and were given little access to scientific training, she was the only women of the 400 members, in fact she was the only women there since 1917. (http://pubs.acs.org) Rosalyn realized that it was unlikely that good graduate schools would admit a woman interested in science, much less a Jewish woman. But on December 7, 1941 the events that happened at Pearl Harbor had a great influence on Women in science. As men were drafted into the military, many universities began accepting women into graduate programs rather than close the schools. (http://pubs.acs.org) As Rosalyn continued research on n ...