Theodora Whatmough Greene (19 November 1931 – 14 July 2005) was a chemist, most well known for authoring the book ''Protective Groups in Organic Synthesis'', which summarises the use of

protecting groups A protecting group or protective group is introduced into a molecule by chemical modification of a functional group to obtain chemoselectivity in a subsequent chemical reaction. It plays an important role in multistep organic synthesis. In many ...

organic synthesis Organic synthesis is a special branch of chemical synthesis and is concerned with the intentional construction of organic compounds. Organic molecules are often more complex than inorganic compounds, and their synthesis has developed into one o ...

Early life and education

Theodora Whatmough was born in Boston in 1931. She completed a bachelor’s degree at

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

and followed by a master’s degree at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. In 1953, she married fellow chemist Frederick Greene, with whom she had four children.

Protective Groups in Organic Synthesis

In 1975, at the age of 44, Greene returned to science to undertake a PhD under the supervision of

EJ Corey Elias James Corey (born July 12, 1928) is an American organic chemistry, organic chemist. In 1990, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his development of the theory and methodology of organic synthesis", specifically retrosynthetic analysis. ...

. She received her PhD on 5 June 1980 whereupon she adapted her thesis into a book, ''Protective Groups in Organic Synthesis'' (John Wiley & Sons), published in 1981 and co-authored with Peter G. M. Wuts. ''Protective Groups'', now in its fifth edition, has found its place as a common reference textbook in organic chemistry labs, where it is used as a guide for the selection of

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Greene, Theodora American women chemists People from Boston 1931 births 2005 deaths Radcliffe College alumni 20th-century American women 21st-century American women