Welcome to the History Portal of the American Crystallographic Association 

Maureen Julian presents an engaging view of Dame Kathleen Lonsdale’s crystallography group at University College London, complete with historical photographs. She followed up on the careers of the group members; it is interesting to see the variety of paths that each member of the lab followed. See "The laboratory of Dame Kathleen Lonsdale at University College London from 1966 to 1968 and then fifty years later.”

The prestigious Ewald Prize was awarded to Wayne Hendrickson in 2023 at the 26th IUCr Congress in Melbourne, Australia. The text of his lecture “Facing the Phase Problem” is now online. Also, see Janet Smith’s summary of his scientific career and achievements, "Commentary on `Facing the phase problem' by Wayne Hendrickson”.

Time-resolved X-ray spectroscopy on a picosecond or femtosecond scale makes it possible to study molecular rotation, isomerization, and vibration. Maged Chergui has been a pioneer in using pump-probe methods at synchrotrons to excite the molecule of interest and then follow its relaxation on ultrafast time scales, in order to learn about electronic structure, oxidation state, spin state, and local geometry. His David Rognlie Award Lecture is now online. He has applied these methods to study the protein dynamics of myoglobin, spin-crossover in iron(II) complexes, and molecular chirality in solution, demonstrating the broad applicability of the method.

In his Bau Award Lecture Arthur J. Schultz summarizes the history of neutron diffraction at Argonne National Laboratory, beginning with disassembling and moving the original graphite blocks from the first nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago. He describes the development of sources and detectors for single-crystal neutron diffraction, beginning with the proof of principle experiment in 1979. The applications have been very interesting, including Jahn-Teller switching in Tutton salts, organic superconductors, ferroelectrics, transition metal hydrides, and transition metal-hydrogen interactions.

Probably you are award of the series “Molecule of the Month” by David Goodsell, featured on the RCSB-PDB website since 2000. In his 2022 Fankuchen Award lecture, “Art as a Tool for Structural Biology” he emphasizes the importance of visualization in structural science, for understanding, for communication, and for education and outreach. His long-term research work has been to develop a realistic model of a living cell, including the molecules present in greatest abundance in a way that enables researchers and students to see the structures that make life possible.

Joel L. Bernstein’s Living History is now online. He was born in Brooklyn and spent the most of his career in NJ. From 1962-1980 he worked at Bell Telephone Laboratories as a crystallographer. Together, he and Sidney Abrahams designed and built one of the first automatic diffractometers for automated X-ray data collection. (See the historically valuable video contrasting precession camera data collection with the automated instrument here.) Later Joel worked in marketing for several telephone companies. Finally, as an independent consultant his specialty was telecommunications for international companies.  

Joel Bernstein was born in Cleveland but most of his career was at the Department of Chemistry, Ben-Gurian University. There he studied structure-property relationships in organic conducting materials, hydrogen-bonding patterns, crystal engineering, and polymorphism. His book Polymorphism in Molecular Crystals (2002) is a classic in the field. His career is summarized in his obituary, now online.

Carroll K. Johnson received the 1997 Martin Buerger Award from the ACA for his work on thermal ellipsoid analysis and his well-known computer program ORTEP (Oak Ridge Thermal-Ellipsoid Plot Program). ORTEP enabled crystallographers to display a crystal structure in three dimensions and to show the extent of thermal vibration of the atoms. A beautiful video remembering his career and his lively personality is now online here.