AAUW Dialog

If you don’t think of Rosalind Franklin when you’re thinking of great scientists, you’re not the only one. This accomplished but seldom-credited woman was a biophysicist who made many contributions to the field of science but is best known today for her critical role in understanding DNA.

Franklin was born in 1920 in London and attended a private school to study chemistry and physics. Although her father was against higher education for women and wanted his daughter to become a social worker, she resisted his expectations and enrolled at Newnham College. However, as a woman, she was only given a nominal college degree. She earned her doctorate at Cambridge and went on to perform research at the biophysics unit of King’s College London.

It was there that she made her revelations about DNA while experimenting with X-ray diffraction techniques. Her data served as the basis for Francis Crick and James Watson’s theoretical models of the double helix, although her male colleagues beat her to publication. Despite her assertive and sometimes confrontational demeanor, Franklin still fell victim to sexist policies of the university system and prejudices of her colleagues. Crick later admitted that he and his colleagues “always used to adopt — let’s say, a patronizing attitude toward her” and Watson downplayed her work and ability in his memoir.

After leaving King’s College, Franklin went on to Birkbeck College to lead a research group that studied RNA and its presence in many viruses. While in the United States to work on the polio virus, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, possibly the result of radiation exposure. She continued to work, but died shortly thereafter in 1958, at the age of 37.

Even though Crick and others later acknowledged Franklin for her key contributions to the DNA model, she could not receive proper credit since Nobel Prize rules don’t allow posthumous nominations. So, the award was given to Crick, Watson, and Maurice Wilkins for their work on nucleic acids in 1962. However, since then, her legacy has been honored in the form of buildings, programs, and fellowships, along with various prizes and a portrait of her alongside Crick, Watson, and Wilkins in the National Portrait Gallery in London.

AAUW will be celebrating trailblazers like Franklin on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., at the first USA Science & Engineering Festival on October 23–24. The festival will showcase more than 500 leading organizations, 750 hands-on activities, 40 stage shows, and women’s science history appreciation. We hope to encourage girls and young women to succeed in science and math and follow in the footsteps of women like Franklin.

Too often, the inspiring stories of women like Franklin are swept under the rug.

What other female scientists deserve more credit than they have been given by the history books?

This post was written by AAUW Communications/Marketing Fellow Nicole Dubowitz