Elsa Lewkowitsch

Dr Elsa Lewkowitsch A.R.C.S.
Born	1903
Died	1980
Citizenship	British
Alma mater	Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London
Scientific career
Fields	Chemistry of oils and fats

Phyllis Regina Elsa Lewkowitsch (1903–1980), Ph.D., A.R.C.S., was a British research chemist, the daughter of Julius Lewkowitsch and Katherine Julia Morris.[1]

Lewkowitsch was the first female student at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London, and graduated top of her year.[2] She continued her father's research into oils and fats, and was a contributor to the 14th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1929–30). In the 1930s she prepared a seventh edition of her father's The Chemical Technology and Analysis of Oils, Fats and Waxes (first edition 1895; sixth edition 1923), but publication was prevented by the Second World War.[3]

By her will she established a bequest to found the Society of Chemical Industry's biennial Julius Lewkowitsch Memorial Lecture in memory of her father.[4]

Publications

• Elsa Lewkowitsch, The ultra-violet absorption spectrum of chlorophyll in alcoholic solution, Biochemical Journal 22/3 (1928); DOI: 10.1042/bj0220777

References

1. Dr Lewkowitsch — oils, fats and waxes, Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society Newsletter, August 2007. Accessed 28 February 2016.
2. The History of the Department, imperial.ac.uk. Accessed 28 February 2016.
3. Frank D. Gunstone, Scientia Gras: A Select History of Fat Science and Technology (AOCS Press, 2000), p. 11.
4. Julius Lewkowitsch Memorial Lecture, SCI. Accessed 28 February 2016.

External links

• Photograph of Elsa Lewkowitsch, ca. 1933, Litchfield Collection on the History of Fatty Materials. Accessed 28 February 2016.
• Photograph of Carol Litchfield and Elsa Lewkowitsch, 1974, Litchfield Collection on the History of Fatty Materials. Accessed 28 February 2016.