Rosalind Elsie Franklin Accomplishments

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Rosalind Elsie Franklin was born into a wealthy and influential Jewish family on July 25, 1920 in Notting Hill, London, England. Franklin attended North London Collegiate School in London and did extremely well in the areas of science. As Franklin excelled in the areas of science, she already decided at the age of 15 that she wanted to become a scientist. However, due to the reason that it was extremely difficult and highly frowned upon for women to obtain university education and a career at the time, Franklin's father strongly opposed her career choice. Nevertheless, Franklin continued to pursue a career in the science field.
In 1938, Franklin enrolled in Newnham College, Cambridge, to study chemistry. Franklin received her bachelor’s degree from Newnham College in 1941. Then Franklin went on to work as a assistant research officer at the …show more content…

In whatever Franklin did, she wholeheartedly pursued it with her heart and gave her full potential. Despite her thorough and diligent ways of conducting her work and research, it did not mean she was respected by everyone. In fact, during her time at King’s College London, Franklin did not get along with her colleague, Maurice Wilkins. Without Franklin’s permission or knowledge, Wilkins disclosed Franklin's photograph 51 to competing scientist James Watson, who was also working on DNA. Eventually, James Watson and his partner Francis Crick used Franklin’s photograph 51 to back up their theory of the DNA model structure. It was due to the conflict between Franklin and Wilkins that played a key factor in Franklin leaving King’s College and relocating to Birkbeck College. Franklin’s life and career was cut short when Franklin discovered she had ovarian cancer and passed away on April 16, 1958, at the age of only 37. Nevertheless, Franklin still managed to contribute immensely to physics and the world in many

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