Marjorie C. Caserio

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Marjorie Constance Caserio (née Beckett; born February 26, 1929 in London , England ) is a British - American chemist ( organic chemistry ).

Life

Marjorie C. Beckett was born on February 26, 1929 in Cricklewood , in north-west London. She was the second child of Herbert Cardoza and Doris May Beckett, née House. Her father was born in Kingston , New York , as her grandfather emigrated to the United States . But he returned to England and founded a company for the manufacture of hotel furnishings, which was taken over by Herbert Cardoza Beckett and later continued by Marjorie's older brother. The family belonged to the Protestant wealthy middle class . After elementary school, Marjorie attended North London Collegiate School , a girls' school in the London Borough of Harrow , until 1944, spending the last year of the Capricorn Company more in air raid shelters than in school.

At the end of the Second World War she went to Chelsea College of Science and Technology with the intention of studying podiatrics . But she didn't like medicine, switched to chemistry after two years and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1950 . She then received a Masters degree in the United States and went to Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania . After graduating in 1951, she returned to England, but did not find a satisfactory job and went back to Bryn Mawr College as a doctoral student in 1953, where she received her doctorate in 1956 under Ernst Berliner .

With the support of Berliner, Marjorie C. Caserio went to John D. Roberts at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena as a post-doctoral student in 1956 . Here she met her husband Fred Caserio, who also worked for Roberts and whom she married in 1957; they have two children. In 1957 she received American citizenship . She stayed at Caltech for nine years and, among other things, worked on important textbooks on organic chemistry with Roberts. In 1965 the family moved to Laguna Beach , California , Fred went into industry, and Marjorie became an assistant professor of chemistry on the newly created campus of the University of California at Irvine (UCI). She rose to professor until 1972, in 1987 she became chairwoman of the Department of Chemistry and a member and later chairwoman of the Committee on Academic Personal . In the last phase of their academic career she was from 1990 until her retirement in 1996 professor at the University of California, San Diego and Vice Chancellor and later Interim Chancellor for Academic Affairs (academic affairs) at the university.

Researches

In addition to teaching, she conducted intensive research in the field of organic chemistry. At Caltech she worked with John D. Roberts on the reactions of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons with three and four ring systems as well as the reactions of alcohols with diazomethane , the hydrolysis of diaryliodonium salts (compounds of the type [Ar – I + –Ar] X - ) and the aryne intermediates in nucleophilic substitution . She continued her research on the latter at the UCI, but at the end of the 1960s the focus of her work shifted to the analysis of the mechanisms and stereochemistry in the synthesis of allenes as well as the binding and reaction mechanisms of organic sulfur compounds such as unsaturated sulfides , sulfur Ylides , disulfides and sulfenic acids . Marjorie C. Caserio was one of the first chemists to use nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy . Furthermore, she investigated the stability and structure of organic ions in the gas phase with the help of ion cyclotron resonance spectroscopy .

Works (selection)

  • John D. Roberts, Marjorie C. Caserio: Basic Principles of Organic Chemistry. Benjamin, New York 1964.
  • John D. Roberts, Marjorie C. Caserio: Modern Organic Chemistry. 1st edition, Benjamin, New York 1967 (2nd edition 1977).
  • Marjorie C. Caserio: Experimental Organic Chemistry. Benjamin, New York 1967.
  • John D. Roberts, Ross Stewart, Marjorie C. Caserio: Organic chemistry: Methane to Macromolecules. Benjamin, Menlo Park, CA 1972.

Awards

literature

  • Elizabeth H. Oakes: Encyclopedia of World Scientists. Revised Edition, Facts On File, 2007, ISBN 978-1438118826 , p. 125 ( online ).
  • Harold Goldwhite: Marjorie Constance Beckett Caserio (1929–). In: Louise S. Grinstein, Rose K. Rose, Miriam H. Rafailovich (Eds.): Women in Chemistry and Physics. Greenwood Press, Westport, CT 1993, ISBN 0-313-27382-0 , pp. 85-93.
  • Tiffany K. Wayne: American Women of Science Since 1900 (Vol.1: Essays AH). ABC-Clio, 2011, ISBN 978-1598841589 , pp. 285 f.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harold Goldwhite: Marjorie Constance Beckett Caserio (1929–). In: Louise S. Grinstein, Rose K. Rose, Miriam H. Rafailovich (Eds.): Women in Chemistry and Physics. Greenwood Press, Westport, CT 1993, pp. 85-93, here p. 85.
  2. ↑ a b Harold Gold White: Marjorie Constance Beckett Caserio (1929-). In: Louise S. Grinstein, Rose K. Rose, Miriam H. Rafailovich (Eds.): Women in Chemistry and Physics. Greenwood Press, Westport, CT 1993, pp. 85-93, here pp. 86-88.
  3. ^ A b Elizabeth H. Oakes: Encyclopedia of World Scientists. Revised Edition, Facts On File, 2007, p. 125.
  4. ^ Biographical data, publications and academic family tree of Marjorie C. Caserio at academictree.org, accessed on January 23, 2018.
  5. ↑ Harold Goldwhite: Marjorie Constance Beckett Caserio (1929–). In: Louise S. Grinstein, Rose K. Rose, Miriam H. Rafailovich (Eds.): Women in Chemistry and Physics. Greenwood Press, Westport, CT 1993, pp. 85-93, here pp. 88-90.
  6. ↑ University of California (Ed.): University Bulletin: A Weekly Bulletin for the Staff of the University of California. Volume 23, Office of Official Publications, Univ. of California, 1974, p. 203.
personal data
SURNAME Caserio, Marjorie C.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Caserio, Marjorie Constance
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American chemist (organic chemistry)
DATE OF BIRTH February 26, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH London , England