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She was instrumental in the discovery of nuclear fission

Lise Meitner’s research merits the highest recognition – especially considering that women in Prussia were not allowed to study or enter lecture halls and laboratories until 1909.

She studied the nature of radioactivity and its effects, while discovering radioactive isotopes and nuclides along the way. Her research provided critical insights into the structure of atomic nuclei and into radioactive decay, producing findings that enabled the first theoretical explanation of nuclear fission and the later development of nuclear energy.

In 1906 she received her doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna. In 1907, during her scientific training in Berlin, she met Otto Hahn. They would go on to collaborate for 30 years. In 1926 she became a professor of physics at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin. In 1938 she fled from the Nazi regime to Sweden and continued her research there at the Nobel Institute for Physics. From 1947 she headed the nuclear physics department at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and held visiting professorships in the United States.

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