Berta Karlik -- The Grande Dame of the Vienna Radium Institute

Abstract

Berta Karlik was an Austrian physicist who was not only among the early radioactivity researchers and nuclear physicists in Vienna, but also pioneered a woman's academic career in Austria. She was the first woman at the University of Vienna to acquire the venia legendi in physics, and the first full professor at a philosophical faculty in Austria. For almost thirty years she was the head of the Institute for Radium Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.