[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 109 (Monday, July 20, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1854-E1856]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




RECOGNIZING THE RETIREMENT OF DR. JEROME KARLE, PH.D., AND DR. ISABELLA 
                            L. KARLE, PH.D.

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. GERALD E. CONNOLLY

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, July 20, 2009

  Mr. CONNOLLY of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize a 
lifetime of service to our Navy and Marine Corps as well as to our 
nation from the husband and wife team of Dr. Jerome Karle, Ph.D., and 
Dr. Isabella L. Karle, Ph.D. They both will be retiring on July 31, 
2009, from the Naval Research Laboratory after a combined 127 years of 
federal service. The longevity of their impressive service is surpassed 
only by the remarkable nature of the scientific contributions that they 
have made.
  The career of Dr. Jerome Karle began with the Manhattan Project and 
continued when he joined the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in 
1944. Dr. Jerome Karle, an internationally renowned chemist and defense 
scientist, made great contributions to our country's defense and well-
being. His work involved the determination of the atomic arrangements 
in materials and their implications. He and his colleagues developed 
new methods to determine those arrangements, which have been 
universally adopted throughout the world. This research occupies an 
almost unique position in science because the information it provides 
is used continuously in other fields. His work in the development of 
direct methods for the determination of crystal structures was 
recognized with the prestigious Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1985. He 
holds honorary degrees from six prominent universities and has served 
as the chairman of the Chemistry Section of the National Academy of 
Sciences. He has received the Department of Defense Distinguished 
Civilian Service Award, the Secretary of the Navy Award for 
Distinguished Achievement in Science, the President's Award for 
Distinguished Federal Civilian

[[Page E1855]]

Service, and the Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Federal 
Civilian Service. More recently, in 2004, he was honored as one of only 
nine Department of Defense career civilian employees featured in a 
Pentagon ``Civilian Hall of Fame,'' a permanent exhibit that will be 
open for new inductees every ten years.
  Dr. Isabella L. Karle, who also worked on the Manhattan Project and 
joined her husband at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in 1946, 
pioneered research that occupies a special place along the frontier of 
scientific progress. Her work provided the basis for ensuing 
methodologies which are now used for a broad range of military and 
civilian applications, from improved propellants, more powerful 
explosives, and more effective sensor systems to novel anti-cancer 
drugs, antibiotics and decontaminating agents. In addition, her 
research has led to a vastly improved understanding of the properties 
of several classes of crystalline materials, including several families 
of metal alloys and a lengthy list of organic substances. More 
specifically, Dr. Isabella Karle is responsible for the development and 
extensive application of a method for determining essentially equal-
atom crystal and molecular structures by X-ray analysis. The method 
transformed analyses that were previously characterized by tedious 
frustration and abortive efforts to one of systematic processes. From a 
small number of structure analyses being published in the 1960s, her 
procedure has led to the analyses and publication of many thousands of 
structures of complicated molecules annually. All of the present 
computerized programs for X-ray structure analyses are based on her 
fundamental work known as the Symbolic Addition Procedure. Its high 
success rate has had a profound effect on the practice of organic and 
biological chemistry. Her work to determine accurately and with 
dispatch the three-dimensional arrangements of atoms in a very broad 
range of substances has been recognized with the prestigious National 
Medal of Science. She holds honorary degrees from eight prominent 
universities; The Benjamin Franklin National Memorial's Bower Award and 
Prize for Achievement in Science, The Franklin Institute; the 
Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award; the Paul 
Ehrlich Prize, National Institutes of Health; the American Peptide 
Society's Merrifield Award; the Gregory Aminoff Prize, Royal Academy of 
Sciences (Sweden); and the Ralph Hirschmann Award in Peptide Science, 
American Chemical Society. In 2004, the University of Michigan honored 
both Drs. Jerome and Isabella Karle with the ``Jerome and Isabella 
Karle Collegiate Professorship of Chemistry.''
  The pioneering research of Jerome and Isabella Karle occupies a 
special place along the frontier of scientific progress because the 
information provided by ensuing methodologies is now used for a broad 
range of military and civilian applications. Their groundbreaking work 
truly affirms the idea that the pursuit of fundamental knowledge, by a 
cadre of government scientists working in a defense mission 
environment, is of enormous value to national security. Madam Speaker, 
I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing Dr. Jerome Karle and Dr. 
Isabella L. Karle for their exemplary service to our nation.

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