Meitner, Lise
Meitner, Lise (1878-1968), an Austrian-Swedish physicist noted for her research on nuclear energy and radioactivity. Working together, she and Otto Hahn discovered protactinium (1917), also discovered by an English team. She later did research with Hahn on the transuranic elements (those heavier than uranium). This led in 1938 to the success of Hahn and Fritz Strassmann in splitting the uranium nucleus into roughly equal segments. Meitner worked out and published, with her nephew Otto Frisch, the first interpretation of the Hahn-Strassmann achievement, naming it "nuclear fission." In 1966 she shared the Fermi Award for her work.
Meitner was born in Vienna of Jewish parentage. She received a Ph.D. degree from the University of Vienna (1906), then moved to Berlin. There she studied with Max Planck and began her 30-year research partnership with Otto Hahn. Meitner headed the radiation-physics department of the Kaiser Wilhelm (later Max Planck) Institute for Chemistry, 1917-38. In 1938 she fled from Nazi Germany to Sweden. She continued her research and became a Swedish citizen. In 1960 she moved to England.