Gao Xiaoxia was a Chinese chemist and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
16 Facts About Gao Xiaoxia
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Gao Xiaoxia held leadership positions at Peking University and in the Chinese Chemical Society.
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Gao Xiaoxia was the only woman in the class to earn a degree.
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Gao Xiaoxia worked as a teaching assistant, enabling Gao to join him and study analytical chemistry at New York University.
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At NYU, Gao Xiaoxia worked with Anton Benedetti-Pichler, an "extraordinarily ingenious" developer of microanalytical techniques.
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Gao Xiaoxia received her master's degree in analytical chemistry from NYU in 1950 and continued to work towards her PhD.
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Gao Xiaoxia focused on instrumentation, developing tools and methods in polarography and applying them to the detection of trace elements.
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Gao Xiaoxia was particularly interested in platinum group elements and rare earths.
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Gao Xiaoxia's work led to greater understanding of the lanthanides and actinides.
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Gao Xiaoxia's work supported the development of separation processes for rare earth elements, introduced by her husband, which reduced the time and cost of extracting such materials.
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Gao Xiaoxia helped to develop China's first monitoring station for the measurement of air pollution.
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Gao Xiaoxia was active in the Chinese Chemical Society between 1978 and 1990.
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Gao Xiaoxia held various leadership positions including being the Director of the Popular Science Committee and the Deputy Director of the Committee of Analytical Chemistry.
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Gao Xiaoxia was elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980.
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Gao Xiaoxia published both papers and books, including Introduction to Electroanalytical Chemistry and Rare Earth agricultural and electroanalytical chemistry.
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Gao Xiaoxia's students include the first two Chinese to defend PhD theses in chemistry in mainland China: Zhang Manping and Jiao Kui.