68. Rosalind Elsie Franklin

Rosalind was an English Chemist and X-Ray crystallographer whose work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA.

Born in 1920 in London to an affluent and influential British Jewish family.  Her parents helped settle Jewish refugees from Europe who had escaped the Nazis as well as taking ion children from the Kindertransport.    Rosalind was the elder daughter of a family of 5 children.  From early childhood she showed exceptional scholastic abilities.  She topped all her classes and won annual awards.

Earning a research fellowship, she joined the university of Cambridge physical Chemistry lab but later took a position The British Coal Research Association and started her work on coals.  Franklin is best known for her work on the X-Ray diffraction images of DNA which led to the discovery of the DNA double helix for which two other researchers were awarded the Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962.  Franklin would have shared this prize however she passed away in 1958 at the age of 37 from Ovarian Cancer and unfortunately which at the time posthumous nominations were not given.