Sechi Katō

Sechi Katō (1893–1989) was a chemist who became the first woman to be a principal investigator at RIKEN, Japan's national Institute of Chemical and Physical Research. Katō was the first female student at Hokkaido University, and the third woman Doctor of Science in Japan. She developed spectrometric analysis of organic materials in Japan.

Katō faced personal adversity as well as gender barriers. When she was a baby, her mother and two of her siblings were killed when their house caught fire after collapsing in an earthquake. Her father died a few years later at the age of 43. Katō married young and had two children, one of whom died in battle in World War II. She lived to the age of 95.

Early life and education

Sechi Katō was born on 2 October 1893 in a wealthy farming family in Oshikiri Village (now Mikawa) in Yamagata prefecture. She began her studies in the Agricultural College in 1918. After graduation, she left her high school teaching job and became an assistant in the University's Department of Agricultural Chemistry. In 1927, she published her first work using absorption spectroscopy to study the physical chemistry of neodymium salt. During World War II, RIKEN scientists directed their attention to the war effort, including Katō. After the war, she worked on analysing the recently discovered drugs, penicillin and streptomycin, including developing pure streptomycin crystals.

During the 1950s, Katō helped establish groups supporting women in science, including the Japanese Society of Women Scientists, formed in 1958, as well as employing women scientists in her laboratory.

Personal life

Katō married an architect from her home town, Sato Tokusaburo, in 1921, and gave birth to a son in 1921, a daughter in 1924, and another daughter in 1931. Her stepmother, Kin, lived with the family so that Katō could continue working. Katō's son died in the battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. Her husband died in 1959.

In 1968, Katō was the first person granted honorary citizen of her hometown. She died after a stroke at her home in Tokyo on 29 March 1989, at the age of 95.