Dec 13, 2021
Celebrating Dr. Remziye Hisar
This Doodle’s Key Themes
Today’s Doodle celebrates Turkish professor and scientist Dr. Remziye Hisar, the first woman to become a chemist in Turkey. On this day in 1991, the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey awarded Hisar with the Service Award for her lifetime of pioneering work in education.
Remziye Hisar was born in 1902. Following her father’s civil appointments, she moved to Istanbul in 1909, where she displayed her precocious intelligence by completing three years of primary school in only one year. The lack of women in the field of science inspired her to pursue chemistry at Darülfünun, known today as Istanbul University.
As one of the era’s few Turkish women to study abroad, Hisar furthered her chemistry studies in 1923 at Paris's prestigious Sorbonne University. Here, she studied under numerous pioneering scientists including the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in Physics, Marie Curie. The following year, she made history as the first Turkish woman to graduate from the Sorbonne. Hisar completed her doctoral thesis in 1933, the same year she began her tenure as a chemistry researcher and professor at Istanbul University. Hisar’s work continued in various scientific departments until her retirement in 1973.
Hisar is widely credited for laying the foundation of modern Turkish scientific studies, especially those of her son Feza Gürsey, an eminent theoretical physicist, and daughter Deha Gürsey, one of few Turks to work for the International Psychological Union.
Here’s to a scientific pioneer who helped change the composition of the international scientific community—Dr. Remziye Hisar!
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