Herta Regina Leng (24 February 1903 – 17 July 1997) was an Austrian-American physicist and educator. Leng was born on 24 February 1903 in

Vienna, Austria en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. She was the daughter of Arthur Leng and Paula Leng, and sister of Leopold Ignaz Leng. Leng fled Austria in 1939 and eventually emigrated to the United States in 1940. She died on 17 July 1997 in

Troy, New York Troy is a city in the U.S. state of New York and the county seat of Rensselaer County. The city is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany ...

Purdue and RPI

Dr. Karl Lark-Horovitz, professor of

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

at Purdue, had a keen interest in the development of the

cyclotron A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest O. Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. Lawrence, Ernest O. ''Method and apparatus for the acceleration of ions'', filed: Jan ...

and the application of physical techniques to solve biological problems, and sought to develop methods that utilized radioactive tracers produced from the cyclotron. With the assistance of Leng and Donald Tendam, radioactive tracers were employed following an intense regimen to develop these methods. Key studies concerned sodium and potassium in the human body and their uptake, distribution and excretion; sodium and potassium distribution in human blood cells; and the analysis of enteric coatings for medications.Lark-Horovitz, Karl, & Leng, Herta R. (1941). Radioactive indicators, enteric coatings and intestinal absorption. Nature. 147: 580-581.Lark‐Horovitz, K., & Leng, H. R. (1942). A new method of testing enteric coatings. Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association. 31(4): 99-102. Leng was awarded an American Association of University Women fellowship for work at Purdue. The fellowship permitted her the freedom to pursue the pioneer research on radioactive tracer materials. In 1943, Leng moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

to accept a faculty appointment in

at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and in 1966 was promoted to become RPI's first female full professor.

Professional associations

Sigma Xi Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society () is a highly prestigious, non-profit honor society for scientists and engineers. Sigma Xi was founded at Cornell University by a junior faculty member and a small group of graduate students in 1886 ...

, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Chapter

Awards and honors

*Herta Leng Memorial Lecture Series, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Every year, RPI honors Leng with the Herta Leng Memorial Lecture Series.

Select publications

*Adsorptionsversuche an Gläsern and Filtersubstanzen nach der Methode der radioaktiven Indikatoren. (Adsorption experiments on glasses and filter substances according to the method of radioactive indicators.) *Radioactive indicators, enteric coatings and intestinal absorption. *A new method of testing enteric coatings. *On the Existence of Single Magnetic Poles. *Pioneer woman in nuclear science.Leng, H. R. (1991). Pioneer woman in nuclear science. American Journal of Physics, 59(7): 584-584.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leng, Herta Regina 1903 births 1997 deaths 20th-century American physicists 20th-century Austrian physicists 20th-century American women scientists American women physicists 20th-century Austrian women scientists Scientists from Vienna Austrian emigrants to the United States Purdue University faculty Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute faculty Fellows of the American Association of University Women Radioactivity Particle accelerators