Chemistry as a profession

Emily L. B. Forster was another of Huntingdon s research students. Little is known about her except that she was working with Huntington at the time she, too, signed the 1909 letter. Forster later became Lecturer at the Westminster College of Pharmacy (see Chap. 10). She authored two books How to Become a Woman Doctor and Analytical Chemistry as a Profession for Women 1... 

Neckers, D.C. 1979, On the Quality of Undergraduate Students Choosing Chemistry as a Profession 1961-1979. A Report, Department of Chemistry, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green OH. 

The Royal Institute of Chemistry, 30 Russell Square, London, W.C.l, is concerned with chemistry as a profession. Founded in 1877 its main tasks are the promotion of education, the setting up of standards of proficiency and their maintenance by examination and registration, the establishment of rules of professional conduct, the safeguarding of the interests and conditions of employment of professional chemists, and the education of the general public concerning the importance of chemistry in modern life. The Institute also publishes in its Journal occasional surveys of members salaries. It also awards the Meldola Medal to chemists under 30 for published work of promise. 

The institution of chemistry in America may be approached from many different angles. In Chapter 2 chemistry is treated first as an occupation — what occupies one, the means of filling one s time, temporary or regular employment . Such an approach implies a broad, inclusive view of chemists and chemistry. In the second part of the chapter, a somewhat narrower approach will be taken in terms of chemistry as a profession. A professional will be viewed as one who is trained and skilled in the theoretic or scientific parts of a trade or occupation, as distinct from its merely mechanical parts . In contrast to the occupation of chemistry as measured in, say, the official Census tabulations, where self-designation results in a promiscuous mixing together of those trained in theory with those simply occupied in chemistry as mechanical activity, our accounting of the profession of chemistry will focus on those who possess certain intellectual skills. While membership implies possession of these skills, the activity of the profession is best understood in terms of the application of such skills to the affairs of others or in the practice of an art . ... 

Chemistry as a profession has attracted a decreasing fraction of credentialled chemists during the past half century. Chemistry has also declined in relative importance as an occupation for professional, technical, and kindred workers during the last quarter century. 

This review outlines aspects of the various phases of Swiss chemistry from the introduction of alchemy in Western Europe, its transition to chemistry as a science and profession and the more recent practice. Attention is drawn to the large number of Swiss Nobel Laureates in chemistry and the contributions of Swiss physicists to chemical spectroscopy, from the days of Balmer. In all periods, Swiss chemistry has had European dimensions, and links can be traced to most host countries of previous Euroanalysis conferences and indeed to the next, at Lisbon, in AD 2000... 

In a recent poll of the general public conducted by the American Chemical Society,6 chemistry as a career option was ranked third in a list of eight scientific professions, and chemists scored high as visionary, innovative, and results-ori-ented. Also, 59% said that chemicals made their lives better. These results sug-... 

Karen Gleason There s apparently some concern that chemical engineers will always be service people to electronics engineers. I believe that view is a consequence of our limited cultural bias on what we as chemical engineers can do. Let s go back and look at the wisdom of undergraduates who pick chemical engineering as a profession. They want to use the tools of chemistry and mathematics to produce useful products. I assert that we,... 

Briefly stated, the position of those unfavourable to the admission of women is that, while gladly offering to those women who already have become chemists measures which would give them benefits derived from attendance at the meetings, they deem it inexpedient publicly to encourage women to adopt chemistry as a professional pursuit, since such a course would tempt them into a career in which they may ultimately not find employment in view of the already overcrowded state of the profession. 

You could contact members of the associations and ask about their work, or ask them to put you in touch with someone working in the profession. If the site has a message board, you could post a general question about food chemistry as a career. 

At this time, chemistry for the first time was fully recognized as a profession in its own right, professors of chemistry became more common in universities. Earlier, chemists were often trained as pharmacists or physicians before they undertook chemical investigations. 

While there are a number of ways of understanding science, I have found that viewing science as a profession has been the most useful way to understand the ethics of science. While scientists do not have the autonomy of the practitioners of the classic learned professions, such as physicians and lawyers, in the past century the individual scientific disciplines, including chemistry, have come to regard themselves... 

As a profession we are justly proud of our great breadth, for we are the only applied science profession with in-depth training in chemistry as well as in physics and mathematics. Our background and perspective as scientist-engineers makes for flexibility and adaptability that is the envy of our sister disciplines (5). 

The central theme of the book is the historical identification and development of chemical engineering as a profession in its own right, distinct not only from all other forms of engineering, but particularly from all forms of chemistry including applied chemistry and industrial chemistry. 

There is much at stake for chemistry as a discipline. There is concern about the ability to find information. People should be able to access the information that has been created to maintain the health of chemistry as a discipline, Grace Baysinger said. Young scientists are the seed corn of the profession, Reed said. They see it as a noble, vibrant, and important discipline. We must make access available to... 

One wonders what direction Ehrlich s future career would have taken if he had come under the influence of von Baeyer, the chemist, rather than [Wilhelm] Waldeyer, the histologist. Ehrlich already realized that he had an instinctive talent for visualizing structural formulae in three dimensions. It was this ability to see benzene rings and their side-chains in stereoscopic view in his mind s eye that was of supreme value in his later research...Ehrlich chose medicine as a profession, but his real passions were organic chemistry and histology. 

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