Early Life and Education
Rosalind Elsie Franklin was born into a prominent Jewish family in London. Her early education was marked by an interest in science, encouraged by her family. Franklin attended St. Paul's Girls' School in London, where she excelled in her studies. In 1938, she entered Newnham College, Cambridge, where she studied natural sciences, focusing on chemistry. During her time at Cambridge, Franklin's passion for scientific research was ignited, and she developed an appreciation for the complexities of scientific inquiry.
After completing her degree in 1941, Franklin remained at Cambridge for her postgraduate studies. She was a member of the prestigious Cavendish Laboratory, where she worked on the study of X-ray crystallography, a technique that would become pivotal in her later work on DNA. Though she showed immense promise, Franklin faced many gender-based barriers in her career, as women were often not given equal opportunities or recognition in scientific fields. shutdown123