Berta Karlik

Berta Karlik was an Austrian physicist. She worked for the University of Vienna, eventually becoming the first female professor at the institution. While working with Ernst Foyn, she published a paper on the radioactivity of seawater. She discovered that the chemical element 85 astatine is a product of natural decay processes. The element was first synthesized in 1940 by Dale R. Corson, K. R. MacKenzie, and Emilio Segrè after several scientists in vain searched for it in radioactive minerals.