Madeleine M. Joullié

The interview begins with Dr. Joullié's description of her early life and education in Brazil. Her father sent her to Simmons College in the United States, where she received her undergraduate degree before obtaining her master's and doctoral degrees in chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. Her mentor, Dr. Allan R. Day, advised her to teach at Penn, where she met and married fellow professor Richard E. Prange. Here Joullié describes Day's teaching and mentoring skills, along with her own views on educating students in the scientific fields and Penn's educational climate, mentioning Charles C. Price. In 1953, Joullié became organic chemistry instructor at Penn. Early on, she overhauled and ran the chemistry laboratories and stockroom. She conducted research on fingerprint reagents for the U. S. Secret Service and is now focusing on cyclic peptides. She reminisces about some of her former students. With Mildred Cohn, Joullié implemented affirmative action guidelines that led to more hiring of women and minorities in tenure-track positions at Penn. Also, she helped institute professional guidelines for chemists through the American Chemical Society. While on a Fulbright scholarship in Brazil, Joullié wrote a book in Portuguese on heterocyclic chemistry. Later, she acted as consultant for Western Electric and Shell. She is collaborating with Paul B. Weisz on angiogenesis research and is also working on a cholinesterase inhibitor for Alzheimer's disease. The interview concludes with a discussion of trends in chemistry textbooks, highlighting Organic Chemistry, which Joullié co-authored with Day.

University of Pennsylvania

1953 - 1957 Instructor

University of Pennsylvania

1957 - 1959 Research Associate

University of Pennsylvania

1959 - 1968 Assistant Professor

University of Pennsylvania

1968 - 1974 Associate Professor

University of Pennsylvania

1974 Professor

James J. Bohning

James J. Bohning is professor emeritus of chemistry at Wilkes University, where he was a faculty member from 1959 to 1990. He served there as chemistry department chair from 1970 to 1986 and environmental science department chair from 1987 to 1990. Bohning was chair of the American Chemical Society’s Division of the History of Chemistry in 1986; he received the division’s Outstanding Paper Award in 1989 and has presented more than forty papers at national meetings of the society. Bohning was on the advisory committee of the society’s National Historic Chemical Landmarks Program from its inception in 1992 through 2001 and is currently a consultant to the committee. He developed the oral history program of the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and he was the foundation’s director of oral history from 1990 to 1995. From 1995 to 1998, Bohning was a science writer for the News Service group of the American Chemical Society. He is currently a visiting research scientist and CESAR Fellow at Lehigh University. In May 2005, he received the Joseph Priestley Service Award from the Susquehanna Valley Section of the American Chemical Society.