Elizabeth Monroe Boggs

Elizabeth Monroe Boggs, born Monroe ( born April 5, 1913 in Cleveland, Ohio; † 27 January 1996), was an American chemist and activist for mentally handicapped children.

She studied at the Concord Academy and at Bryn Mawr College (including mathematics), where in 1935 summa cum laude graduated. In 1939, she received her doctorate at the University of Cambridge with John Lennard -Jones in theoretical chemistry. Then she went to the laboratory of Physical Chemistry, Cornell University John G. Kirkwood. During World War II she worked in the research on explosives at Los Alamos.

She published under the name Elizabeth Monroe. In 1941 she married Fitzhugh Boggs ( 1911-1971 ) and then released under EM Boggs. With Kirkwood, she published some fundamental work on the physical chemistry and statistical mechanics.

After the birth of her son David in 1945, who was mentally handicapped after an infection, she began to get involved with developmental disabilities for the interests of people. She was founder and 1958 President of the National Association for Retarded Children (now The ARC of the United States ) and was relevant government committees in the time of the presidency of John F. Kennedy. She also worked with the UN together as the principal author of the Declaration on the Rights mentally handicapped. With Justin Dart, she was director of a task force to these questions in the U.S. Congress.

She has received numerous honors, including the Kennedy International Award for Leadership, the Distinguished Public Service Award from the U.S. Department of Health and the N. Neal Pike price.

She was an honorary member of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. She was an honorary doctor of the University of Medicine and dentristry in New Jersey ( where it was named in honor of her 1997 Elizabeth M. Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities ), the Kean College and Ohio State University.