Dorothy Crowfoot was born in Cairo, Egypt on the 12th May 1910 to John Crowfoot and Grace Mary Crowfoot née Hood. Her early years were spent in the Sudan where her father worked and she moved to England during the first World War.
In 1921, she entered the Sir John Leman Grammar School in Beccles, Suffolk and it was here that her love of chemistry really began to develop. Dorothy went on to study chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford in 1928 aged 18. In 1932 she moved to Cambridge to study under J.D. Bernal and it was here that she became interested in using X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of proteins.
She was a pioneer in the technique of X-ray crystallography and amongst her most influential discoveries are the determination of the structure of penecillin, insulin and vitamin B12. She was awarded the Noble Prize for her work on B12 in 1964, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1947 and was a recipient of the Order of Merit in 1965.
Hodgkin was also deeply involved with various peace organisations throughout her life, and was denied a visa to the USA in 1953 because of her involvement with the orgaisation Science for Peace, a group that included amongst it's members some communists. From 1976 to 1988 she was chair of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.
Dorothy married Thomas Hodgkin, an expert in African Studies, in 1937, and they had three children.
