Lucy Weston Pickett (January 19, 1904 – November 23, 1997) was a Mary Lyon Professor and Camille and Henry Dreyfus Chair in Chemistry at

Mount Holyoke College Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United States. ...

. Her research on

X-ray crystallography X-ray crystallography is the experimental science determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam of incident X-rays to diffract into many specific directions. By measuring the angles ...

and ultraviolet

absorption spectroscopy Absorption spectroscopy refers to spectroscopic techniques that measure the absorption of radiation, as a function of frequency or wavelength, due to its interaction with a sample. The sample absorbs energy, i.e., photons, from the radiating fie ...

of organic molecules received numerous honors and was supported by grants from the

Office of Naval Research The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an organization within the United States Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Established by Congress in 1946, its mission is to plan ...

, the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

and the Petroleum Research Fund of the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all d ...

Early life

Pickett was born on January 19, 1904, in

Beverly, Massachusetts Beverly is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, and a suburb of Boston. The population was 42,670 at the time of the 2020 United States Census. A resort, residential, and manufacturing community on the Massachusetts North Shore, Beverly incl ...

, to Lucy Weston, a former school teacher and elementary school principal, and George Ernest Pickett, a former seaman. She had one brother, Thomas Austin Pickett, who also became a chemist. Both Lucy and Thomas led similar academic and professional lives, while still holding a close relationship.

Education

Lucy W. Pickett attended high school in Beverly and later entered Mount Holyoke College in

South Hadley, Massachusetts South Hadley (, ) is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 18,150 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. South Hadley is home to Mount Holyoke Colleg ...

, in 1921 and graduated in 1925. Lucy planned on majoring in Latin but changed her mind to work in the sciences, having an attraction to chemistry. She double majored in chemistry and mathematics. In, 1925, Pickett graduated with ''

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

'', both in chemistry, and in mathematics at Mount Holyoke. She continued to a master's degree in two years before moving to the University of Illinois, where she studied for her doctoral degree. Lucy earned a Ph.D. from the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

majoring in

analytical chemistry Analytical chemistry studies and uses instruments and methods to separate, identify, and quantify matter. In practice, separation, identification or quantification may constitute the entire analysis or be combined with another method. Separati ...

with minors in both physical chemistry and physics. Her dissertation research explored the effects of X-rays on chemical reactions and the X-ray structures of

organic compound In chemistry, organic compounds are generally any chemical compounds that contain carbon-hydrogen or carbon-carbon bonds. Due to carbon's ability to catenate (form chains with other carbon atoms), millions of organic compounds are known. The ...

Career

Pickett taught at Illinois and

Goucher College Goucher College ( ') is a private liberal arts college in Towson, Maryland. It was chartered in 1885 by a conference in Baltimore led by namesake John F. Goucher and local leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church.https://archive.org/details/h ...

before returning to Mount Holyoke in 1930. She would stay there until she retired in 1968. During her 1932–1933 leave she worked with the famous X-ray crystallographer and Nobel laureate

Sir William Bragg Sir William Henry Bragg (2 July 1862 – 12 March 1942) was an English physicist, chemist, mathematician, and active sportsman who uniquelyThis is still a unique accomplishment, because no other parent-child combination has yet shared a Nobel ...

at the

Royal Institution The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often the Royal Institution, Ri or RI) is an organisation for scientific education and research, based in the City of Westminster. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, inc ...

, London. In 1939, on an Educational Foundation Fellowship she worked with

Victor Henri Victor Henri (6 June 1872 – 21 June 1940) was a French-Russian Physical chemistry, physical chemist and physiologist. He was born in Marseilles as a son of Russian parents. He is known mainly as an early pioneer in enzyme kinetics. He publishe ...

University of Liège The University of Liège (french: Université de Liège), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French. As of 2020, ULiège is ranked in the 301 ...

, Belgium, and with

George Kistiakowsky George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd President ...

at Harvard. As much as Lucy would have liked to have continued her work in X-ray crystallography, she returned to Mount Holyoke College to join in an active team of researchers, including Emma Perry Carr and Mary Sherrill, who were investigating molecular structures through spectroscopy. In 1939, Pickett went to Belgium to the University of Liege, where she began her work with spectroscopist, Victor Henri, and in the same year, to Harvard to work with molecular spectroscopist, George Kistiakowsky. In 1942, Pickett and Carr traveled to Chicago to attend a conference on spectroscopy organized by Robert S. Mulliken. Lucy worked with Milliken in 1952 on theoretical interpretations of the spectrum of the benzenium ion. Her colleagues and students created The Lucy Pickett Lectureship, a lectureship designed to bring outstanding speakers to the Mount Holyoke campus. The first speaker was

Robert Mulliken Robert Sanderson Mulliken Note Longuet-Higgins' amusing title for reference B238 1965 on page 354 of this Biographical Memoir. The title should be "Selected papers of Robert S Mulliken." (June 7, 1896 – October 31, 1986) was an American ph ...

, 1966 Chemistry Nobel laureate, with whom Pickett had published a paper in 1954. In the 1970s, Pickett requested that the funds be used to honor

women scientists The presence of women in science spans the earliest times of the history of science wherein they have made significant contributions. Historians with an interest in gender and science have researched the scientific endeavors and accomplishments ...

Publications

* ''The effect of X-rays on chemical reactions...An X-ray study of the structure of organic compounds.''

Honors and awards

* Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 1955. * In 1957 she received the Francis P. Garvan Medal from the

for her research in molecular spectroscopy. * Honorary D.Sc. from Ripon College in 1958 * Honorary D.Sc. from Mount Holyoke College in 1975 * Upon her retirement, colleagues, students, and friends honored Pickett's many contributions to Mount Holyoke by establishing a lectureship in her name. The chemistry department's Lucy W. Pickett annual lecture series, which brings outstanding women scientist to campus, continues to this day. * In 1975, awarded the honorary doctor of science

References

External links

MIT Chemist to Deliver Lucy W. Pickett Lecture

Expert on Cell Surfaces to Deliver Lucy W. Pickett Lecture November 20
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pickett, Lucy Weston 20th-century American zoologists American women chemists 1904 births 1997 deaths Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Mount Holyoke College alumni Mount Holyoke College faculty University of Illinois alumni Recipients of the Garvan–Olin Medal 20th-century American women scientists 20th-century American chemists American women academics Chemists from Massachusetts People from Beverly, Massachusetts Goucher College faculty and staff