Sonja Krause Goodwin (1933–2021) was a Swiss-American physical chemist specializing in the

thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of the ...

and effects of

electric field An electric field (sometimes E-field) is the physical field that surrounds electrically charged particles and exerts force on all other charged particles in the field, either attracting or repelling them. It also refers to the physical field fo ...

s on

polymer A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...

solutions, and also interested in

climate history Paleoclimatology (British spelling, palaeoclimatology) is the study of climates for which direct measurements were not taken. As instrumental records only span a tiny part of Earth's history, the reconstruction of ancient climate is important to ...

Education and career

Krause was born in 1933 in St. Gallen, Switzerland. When she was a child, she left Europe with her parents to escape

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

, emigrating to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, where her parents sold German-language books. She went to the Bronx High School of Science, as one of the first women to attend that school, and graduated from the

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...

in 1954. She completed a Ph.D. in 1958 at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, with the dissertation ''Electric Birefringence Studies of Some Macromolecular Solutions Using Microsecond Transients''. After working in industry at the Rohm & Haas Company,As listed in publications and patents from the time she spent several years in the mid-1960s in the

Peace Corps The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was established in March 1961 by an executive order of President John F. ...

heading the physics department at the University of Lagos in Nigeria, and later in Ethiopia. She returned to Rensselaer as a faculty member in physical chemistry in 1967, and was named full professor in 1978. She retired in 2004.

Books

Krause was a coauthor of the textbook ''Chemistry of the Environment'' (1978; 2nd ed., 2002, Harcourt/Academic Press, with R. A. Bailey, H. M. Clark, J. P. Ferris, and R. L. Strong). She also published her experiences in the Peace Corps as the two-book series ''My Years in the Early Peace Corps: Nigeria, 1964–1965'' and ''My Years in the Early Peace Corps: Ethiopia, 1965–1966'' (Hamilton Books, 2021).

Recognition

Krause was named a

Fellow of the American Physical Society The American Physical Society honors members with the designation ''Fellow'' for having made significant accomplishments to the field of physics. The following lists are divided chronologically by the year of designation. * List of American Physic ...

(APS), after a nomination from the APS Division of Polymer Physics, in 1976. She was also a Fellow of the

International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC ) is an international federation of National Adhering Organizations working for the advancement of the chemical sciences, especially by developing nomenclature and terminology. It is ...

References

External links

Home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krause, Sonja 1933 births 2021 deaths American physical chemists American women chemists Polymer scientists and engineers Women physical chemists Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute alumni Academic staff of the University of Lagos Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute faculty Fellows of the American Physical Society 21st-century American women Swiss emigrants to the United States People from St. Gallen (city)