Dr. Remziye Hisar: Google doodle to honor first female Turkish scientist

Today Google doodle to celebrate Turkish professor and scientist Dr. Remziye Hisar, the first woman to become a chemist in Turkey. She occupied academic positions at various Turkish universities during her career and published numerous articles, mostly on metaphosphates and Turkish herbs.

On this day in 1991, the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey awarded Remziye Hisar with the Service Award for her lifetime of pioneering work in education. 

Remziye Hisar was born in 1902 in Üsküp, then part of the Ottoman Empire, where her father Salih Hulusi was appointed as a civil servant. 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.

Her mother was Ayşe Refia. One year after the proclamation of the Second Constitution, the family returned to Istanbul in 1909.

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 In 1947.

 Remziye, adopted the surname Hisar following the commencement of the 1934 Surname Law in 1934, went to Istanbul Technical University to take again the post of associate professor in chemistry at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Chemistry. She was promoted to full professor in 1959. 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.

After her retirement, Remziye Hisar lived in her house at Anadoluhisarı inherited from her father. She died soon after hearing the death of her son Feza in 1992.

Here’s to a scientific pioneer who helped change the composition of the international scientific community—Dr. Remziye Hisar!

Source: Google doodles, Wikipedia

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