Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910-1994) won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1964. Almost 60 years later, she is still the only British woman scientist who has been honoured at the annual ceremony in Stockholm. Her lifelong interest in natural and artificial patterns began in childhood, and led to a career analysing the arrangements of atoms in crystals of biologically-important molecules such as penicillin and insulin. Hodgkin’s biographer Georgina Ferry discusses the many factors that led to her exceptional success.

Georgina Ferry is a science writer, author and broadcaster. She has been a staff editor and feature writer on New Scientist, and a presenter of science programmes on BBC Radio. Her biography of Britain’s only female Nobel-prizewinning scientist, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin: Patterns, Proteins and Peace, was reissued by Bloomsbury in 2019. She has published several further books on 20^th and 21^st-century science. She is a regular contributor of reviews, obituaries and features to publications including The Guardian, Nature and The Lancet.

Access: The library event space is on the first floor. There is no lift, though there is a chair lift running between the entrance hall and the library itself. Please contact the Events Secretary events@leedsphilandlit.org.uk if you have any queries.

As this is an in-person event, it is possible to book 2 (or more) tickets. The capacity of the room is 80 people.

The Leeds Library is close to bus stops in Woodhouse Lane, The Headrow, Boar Lane and Vicar Lane.

The nearest car park is Q-Park, Albion Street – 2 minutes away on foot