Berta Karlik

Berta Karlik (24 January 1904 – 4 February 1990) was an Austrian physicist. She discovered that the element 85 astatine is a product of the natural decay processes. The element was first synthesized in 1940 by Dale R. Corson, K. R. MacKenzie, and Emilio Segrè, after several scientists in vain searched for it in radioactive minerals.

Biography

Berta Karlik was born in Vienna and studied physics at the University of Vienna from 1923 till 1928 when she received her Ph.D.. After studying in Paris and London she started working at the Institut für Radiumforschung (Institut for Radium Research) in Vienna in 1931. From 1937 she was allowed to give lectures, and slowly advanced in the hirarchy of the institute. She became provisional director of the institute in 1945 and official in 1947. Berta Karlik was the first woman to be full professor (ordentliche Professur) at the University of Vienna in 1956. She retired in 1973, but worked at "her" institute till her death in 1990.

References

• "Berta Karlik" (in German). w-fFORTE - Wirtschaftsimpulse für Frauen in Forschung und Technologie. 
• Friesinger, Katharina. "Berta Karlik" (in German). University of Vienna. 
• Tsoneva-Mathewson, S., M. F. Rayner-Canham, G. F. Rayner-Canham, A Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity, (Eds. Rayner-Canham), McGill-Queen.s University Press (1997)

Sources

• Archive, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Archivbehelf: Institut fur Radiumforschung, XIII. Berta Karlik, Karton 43, Fiche 629