Prof. Elisabeth Kara-Michailova - the first Bulgarian nuclear physicist

Penka Lazarova, Nikola Balabanov

Absrtact

The name of prof. Elisabeth Kara-Michailova (1897-1968) is tightly  associated with the development of experimental nuclear physics in Bulgaria. She is the first habilitated  woman  in the Sofia University; founder and first chair of the Department of Atomic Physics at our Alma Мater; founder and head of the Department for Radioactivity and Nuclear Spectroscopy in the  Physics Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; the first woman full professor in physics in Bulgaria. Prof. Е. Kara-Michailova is a pioneer of nuclear physics and of the radioecology in Bulgaria.

She studied and obtained her PhD degree in the Vienna University. More  than ten years (1923-1935) she worked in the Radium Institute in Vienna,  then at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge (1935-1939) and studied the contemporary problems in the field of nuclear physics in the 1930s.

The article briefly presents E. Karamichailova`s activities in the Radium Institute and in the Cavendish Laboratory, as well in the Sofia University. The main accent lies on her contribution and leading role in the studies in Bulgaria that deal with natural radioactivity in mineral waters, radioactive pollution of  uranium mining regions, the impact on the public health, etc.