Carolina H. MacGillavry (1904-1993)

Carolina H. MacGillavry, crystallographer, retired professor at the U. of Amsterdam, member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, honorary member of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Soc. and of the Netherlands Soc. for Crystallography, died May 9, 1993 at the age of 89. Carolina, born Jan. 22, 1904 in Amsterdam, studied chemistry at the U. of Amsterdam and got her Ph.D. in 1937 on the basis of the thesis "Roentgenanalyse of veellingkristallen," in English: "X-Ray Analysis of Multiple Twins." For some time she was an assistant in Leiden, before J. M. Bijvoet asked her to be his assistant in the laboratory for Crystallography in Amsterdam. When Bijvoet accepted an appointment in Utrecht, Carolina took over in Amsterdam, became lector (associate professor) in 1946 and was finally professor in Chemical Crystallography from 1950 to 1972. Carolina Macgillavry, or rather Mac, as her many students from all over the world used to call her, was an authority in our science and her laboratory developed into an internationally known center for crystallographic research. She was respected because of her knowledge, erudition, enthusiasm and working power. At the same time she was very easy to approach and full of warm interest in the personal life of her co-workers and students. There were always many foreigners working in the laboratory and many of these formed lasting friendships. One example is Lodovico Riva di Sanseverino, a close friend of mine since we worked in Carolina's lab, 30 years ago. When by way of e-mail I told him of her death, he replied: "Henk, express in your peroration for Mac, how much love and esteem she had from her foreign students like me! Those days are really difficult to replace, the persons too."

Her many contributions to crystallographic research include very different subjects. Before 1940 she was already working in the field of measuring phases of reflections. Jerome Karle never forgets to mention in review articles on direct methods for the determination of crystal structures that the observation of the non-negativity of electron density as the basis for inequalities was made by H. Hauptman and himself, and, independently, also by C. Macgillavry. Many crystal structures have been solved by her students and by herself, most of them applications of Patterson methods. Her series of structures of Vitamin A and derivatives may be the highlight of the structures from that period. Also, during a time when a 25-atom structure determination was a scientific achievement in itself, a series of 20 structures was, to say the least, evidence of rare ability.

She also played an important role in the IUCr in the Dutch chemistry and crystallography organizations. She was a member of the IUCr Executive Comm. from 1954 to 1960. She was also a member of the Comm. on the IntI. Tables; together with G. Rieck, she edited volume III. In addition, who does not know the book "Symmetry Aspects of M. C. Eschers' Periodic Drawings", a magnificent synthesis of art, science and education? Didactically, Carolina was strongest when talking for an audience with some knowledge of the subject. For more general audiences, she was well known for her lectures about symmetry. When she was 80 years old, the chemistry faculty of the U. of Amsterdam asked her to give a lecture about symmetry in the Faculty Colloquium. Over 300 people, still a record!, attended a very interesting and stimulating lecture, and at the end she received very long and very loud applause, also a record since then. The same year she lectured for the Dutch crystallographers about the symmetry of the crystal in one of the paintings of Durer. In Carolina H. Macgillavry, our science has had a unique personality.