Margaret Melhase

Margaret Melhase Fuchs (August 13, 1919 – August 8, 2006) was an American chemist and a co-discoverer, with Glenn T. Seaborg, of the isotope caesium-137.

Education and research career In 1940, Melhase was an undergraduate in the college of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. She was president of the Student Affiliates of the American Chemical Society and was considering doctoral studies and a career in chemistry. Honors students typically took on research projects at the time, and she sought advice from her close friend, nuclear chemist Gerhart Friedlander; Friedlander was then a graduate student under the supervision of Glenn T. Seaborg, and he suggested she approach him for a project.

Melhase received a bachelor's degree in nuclear chemistry and planned to apply for graduate studies at UC Berkeley. However, the head of the chemistry department, Gilbert N. Lewis, was refusing entry to women; the last woman the department admitted had gotten married shortly after her graduation and he considered her education a "waste". She rejoined the Manhattan Project from 1944 to 1946. She met mathematics professor Robert A. Fuchs at a folk dance, and the two married in 1945 and had three children. She and her husband moved to Los Angeles. She was a supporter of social causes, organizing marches for agricultural workers and housing and aiding immigrant Laotian families in Los Angeles.