Person

Fisher, Nellie Ivy (Jackie) (1907 - 1995)

Born
15 October 1907
London, England
Died
10 August 1995
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Occupation
Industrial chemist
Alternative Names
  • Fisher, Jackie (Also known as)

Summary

Nellie Fisher was the first female scientist to head a chemical laboratory in Australia. Her career as an industrial chemist began at Ilford Research Laboratories and Kodak Limited in the United Kingdom where, with colleague Frances Hamer, she conducted research into cyanine dyes that were important in the development of colour photography. This collaboration resulted a number of research papers and patents. In 1939 she was asked to relocate to Kodak in Australia because of her vast knowledge of the preparation and testing of sensitising dyes, as a measure against potential supply problems during WWII. Arriving in Melbourne in February 1940, she worked on synthesising dyes, preparing colour correction filters, and safelight screens. She introduced to Australia modern methods of chemical analysis in relation to colour photography. As head of Kodak's emulsion (sensitising) laboratory Fisher trained many chemists who went on to hold senior positions in the company. When Kodak moved to a larger site in the Melbourne suburb of Coburg, she supervised to the establishment of the new laboratory. Fisher retired in 1962. In her private life she was known as Jackie.

Details

Chronology

1928 - 1929
Career position - President, Imperial College Women's Association
1929
Education - Bachelor of Science (BSc), Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London
1930
Education - Postgraduate Diploma, Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London
1930 - 1934
Career position - Chemist, Photographic Plates and Paper Ltd (a division of Ilford Research Laboratories)
1934 - 1939
Career position - Research chemist, Kodak Limited, Harrow, United Kingdom
1938
Education - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of London
1939 - 1948
Career position - Research chemist, Kodak (Australasia) Pty Ltd, Abbotsford, Victoria
February 1940
Life event - Arrived in Melbourne, Victoria
1948 - 1962
Career position - Head, emulsion laboratory, Kodak (Australasia) Pty Ltd
1962
Life event - Retired

Related Corporate Bodies

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

  • McCarthy, Gavan; Morgan, Helen; Smith, Ailie; van den Bosch, Alan, Where are the Women in Australian Science?, Exhibition of the Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation, First published 2003 with lists updated regulary edn, Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, 2003, https://eoas.info/exhibitions/wisa/wisa.html. Details

Book Sections

Newspaper Articles

  • Stevens, Sue, 'Kodak scientist a woman well ahead of her time', Age (Melbourne) (1995), 18. Details

Resources

Rosanne Walker and Helen Cohn

EOAS ID: biogs/P003044b.htm

Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
What do we mean by this?

Published by Swinburne University of Technology.
This Edition: 2024 November (Ballambar - Gariwerd calendar - early summer - season of butterflies)
Reference: http://www.bom.gov.au/iwk/calendars/gariwerd.shtml#ballambar
For earlier editions see the Internet Archive at: https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.eoas.info

The Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation uses the Online Heritage Resource Manager (OHRM), a relational data curation and web publication system developed by the eScholarship Research Centre and its predecessors at the University of Melbourne 1999-2020. The OHRM has been maintained by Gavan McCarthy since 2020.

Cite this page: https://www.eoas.info/biogs/P003044b.htm

"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260