Ladies in Waiting AND Still Waiting for the Nobel Prize

• Professor Mary Virginia Orna, College of New Rochelle
• Sponsored by the ACS San Diego Section
• 6pm-8pm, Online via Zoom, Free, Learn more and register

Abstract

That there is a gender imbalance in the list of Nobel laureates is unambiguous. There are many reasons for this situation, among which one may cite the very small pool of women scientists. While that may have been true in the past, the number of women who are active in scientific research has grown exponentially, and yet we had to wait until 2020 for two women to join the other five women chemistry laureates (3.76% in the Nobel’s 120-year history). This talk will highlight an outstanding group of women, some of whom were nominated unsuccessfully for the prize many times, and some who were never nominated at all, but perhaps should have been. While we will discuss only the tip of the iceberg, there will be many more references suggested for further research and reading.

Bio

Mary Virginia Orna is Professor of Chemistry, Emerita, at The College of New Rochelle. She received her Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Fordham University. Orna has lectured and published widely in the areas of color chemistry and archaeological chemistry. In 2010 Mary was chosen as an ACS Fellow and has received many other awards including the Chemical Manufacturing Association’s Catalyst Award for excellence in college chemistry teaching, the CASE (Council for the Advancement and Support of Education) New York State Professor of the Year, the Merck Innovation Award, the Western Connecticut ACS Section’s Visiting Scientist Award, the James Flack Norris Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Teaching of Chemistry, and the American Chemical Society’s 1999 George C. Pimentel Award in Chemical Education. She has presented over a dozen plenary lectures and named lectureships. She was a Fulbright Fellow in Israel (1994-95) where she lectured at The Hebrew University. Professor Orna was a major contributor to the ACS symposium series on The Posthumous Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Volume 2, Ladies in Waiting for the Nobel Prize (2018).