Dorothy Hodgkin, The making of an exceptional scientist

Nature : Dorothy Hodgkin was born 100 years ago next month. When Hodgkin won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964 , much was made of her gender. She was only the fifth woman to become a laureate in science, the first from Britain, and the first women not married to a scientist. Hodgkin was therefore by definition exceptional. When Georgina Ferry began to write her biography soon after her death in 1994, one of her principal motives was to try to understand what it was that had enabled her to transcend the conventions of her time. “She never acknowledged that she faced barriers on the grounds of her gender,” writes Ferry, “and her story largely bears this out."What did influence her social and scientific circumstances were also exceptional, and provided the environment in which it was possible for her to fulfil her promise and achieve science’s highest honor, says Ferry. The support of her parents, and the forward-thinking planning of Somerville College in Oxford.