Remziye Hisar (1902-1992)

She was born in 1902 in Skopje. She is the first woman chemist in Turkey. Her studies were interrupted during the hard times of WWI, but she managed to enroll Istanbul University where she started to teach classes such as mathematics and geometry. She enrolled to the Department of Chemistry which she became quite passionate about. During her studies, she visited Baku where she met her husband. Finishing her studies, she was appointed to Adana where she became the principal at Girls School in Adana. When her husband become ill, they decided to move to Paris for his treatment where Hisar decided to enroll to Sorbonne University by receiving the state funding.

In Paris, she took courses from Langevin and Marie Curie. In 1933, she received her PhD from Sorbonne University and published various articles on chemistry. She then came back to Turkey to start working at Istanbul University on chemistry as Associate Professor. In 1947, she started to work on machinery and chemistry on Istanbul Technical University. In 1949, she was one of the people who established Association for Turkish University Educated Women (Türk Üniversiteli Kadınlar Derneği). In 1955, she was awarded with Officiel d’Academie award from France. She obtained her professorship in 1959. She continued to work in academia until 71 years old and then retired. She passed away in 1992.

Sources: http://web.archive.org/web/20160304133933/http://www.bilimtarihi.org/pdfs/remziyehisar.pdf