Ellen Gleditsch was born in Mandal, Norway. Although she earned extraordinary grades in high school, she was not allowed to take the necessary exams to enter the university because she was a woman. Instead, she worked as a pharmacy assistant, which enabled her to obtain a nonacademic degree in chemistry and pharmacology in 1902. Through her association with Dr. Eyvind Bodtker, she acquired more experience and knowledge in chemistry and was able to publish some of her work in a French journal.

Gleditsch wanted very much to work with Marie Curie, and Bodtker was able to persuade Curie to allow Gleditsch to become a researcher in her laboratory. Because Gleditsch was a chemist and could undertake the recrystallization of radium and barium, she was exempted from the normal fees required to join Curie's group. She determined the uranium/radium ratios in minerals for her thesis and earned a Licenciee des Sciences degree from the Sorbonne in 1911.

Gleditsch was awarded a teaching fellowship at the University of Oslo. In 1913 she traveled to the United States on an American Scandinavian Foundation scholarship. Because of her sex, she was turned down by Theodore Lyman at Harvard. Bertram Boltwood at Yale accepted her, but only because she had never received his letter of rejection. While there, she determined the exact half-life of radium, one of the most significant achievements in radiochemistry. This discovery gained her scientific respectability, and Lyman offered her space as a guest in his laboratory. Following her work there, Gleditsch returned to the University of Oslo in 1914, where she was finally appointed professor of chemistry in 1929, her first permanent position after a series of various teaching positions. She remained at the University of Oslo until her retirement.

Collaborting with Theodore Richards, Gleditsch collected lead-containing minerals and extracted and purified the lead salts. Richards determined the atomic mass of lead in these salts and found it to be significantly different from "ordinary" lead, thus leading him to confirm the existence of isotopes. Gleditsch continued to carry out her research and later wrote a monograph on isotopes.

During World War II, when Gleditsch was in her sixties, she played an active role in the Resistance in Norway. She was also a leader in the International Federation of University Women and an activist for women's rights, a social cause her mother had pursued.

In 1917, Gleditsch was the second woman to be elected to the Academy of Science in Oslo. In 1962, at the age of 83, she was the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate from the Sorbonne in Paris. Ellen Gleditsch died on in.

1. CWP at Physics-UCLA: Ellen Gleditsch

1. Rayner-Canham, M., Rayner-Canham, G. Ellen Gleditsch. In Women in Chemistry: Their Changing Roles from Alchemical Times to the Mid-Twentieth Century; American Chemical Society and the Chemical Heritage Foundation: Washington, DC, 1998; pp 107-110.
2. Weidler Kubanek, A.-M., Grzegorek, G. P. Ellen Gleditsch: Professor and Humanist. In A Devotion to Their Science, Pioneer Women of Radioactivity; Rayner-Canham, M. F., Rayner-Canham, G. W., Eds.; Chemical Heritage Foundation: Philadelphia, PA, 1997; pp 51-75.