Margot Becke-Goehring

From 1966 to 1969, she was the first female rector of a university in West Germany . She was also able to determine the structure and chemistry of poly(sulfur nitride) which later turned out to be the first non-metallic superconductor. Furthermore, she worked on eight-membered ring systems (e.g. heptasulfur imide S7NH and N4S4F4), on six-membered rings (e.g. N3S3X3 (X=F,Cl) and N3[S(O)Cl]), and on ring systems involving sulfur, nitrogen and oxygen atoms as well as sulfur, nitrogen and carbon atoms. whereby several intermediate stages could be isolated and characterized.

Recognition For her research in inorganic chemistry, she received the Alfred Stock Memorial Prize in 1961. the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities. She also received an honorary doctorate from the University of Stuttgart. For her work on the Gmelins Handbuch der anorganischen Chemie, she was awarded the Gmelin-Beilsteil Memorial Coin in 1980.

Publications Besides her dissertation and habilitation, Becke-Goehring published several textbooks on Chemistry and books on the history of Chemistry:

Die Kinetik der Dithionsäurespaltung (Dissertation 1938) Über die Sulfoxylsäure (Habilitation 1944)