Jane Frommer Collection

Jane Frommer is an American research chemist and a pioneer researcher in nanoscience and nanotechnology. Frommer earned her B.S. in Chemistry from Tufts University in 1976. While studying at Tufts, she served as a Research Intern at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and as a Researcher of Vitamin D Endocrinology at Massachusetts General Hospital (1975-1976). She continued her education at the California Institute of Technology, where she earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1980.

After earning her Ph.D., Frommer began her professional career at Allied Corporate Laboratories (now called Honeywell International, Incorporated), where she served as a Research Scientist (1980-1986). At Allied Corporate Laboratories, Frommer created and studied the solution state of electronically conducting organic polymers.

From 1986 to 2018, Frommer served as a Research Scientist at IBM Research, the research and development division of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). At IBM Research, she and her colleagues demonstrated the ability to image and manipulate single molecules with scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). She was also involved in a number of other materials research programs at IBM Research, including those involving lithography, 3D nanoprinting, polymers, and biological nanostructures.

Frommer’s career at IBM Research was interrupted by a four-year assignment at the University of Basel Physics Institute (1989-1993). At the University of Basel, Frommer and her team expanded the capability of scanning probes into measuring the functional properties of organic thin films with atomic force microscopy (AFM). They also demonstrated AFM’s ability to distinguish between different molecular species within monolayers.

Frommer retired from IBM Research in 2018. In her retirement, she served as Associate Editor of Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology and as a scientific advisor to several Silicon Valley startups. She also served as a mentor to high school and college students.

Over the course of her career, Jane Frommer was awarded more than fifty patents and authored more than one hundred refereed science publications. She was also an active member of the American Chemical Society. Frommer was also the recipient of several awards, including the American Chemical Society Award in Industrial Chemistry (2017) and the Society of Chemical Industry’s Perkin Medal (2020).

Sources

Jane Frommer Collection, Science History Institute Archives, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

“Jane Frommer, PhD, to Receive Prestigious 2020 Perkin Medal,” SCI America, SCI America – Jane Frommer, PhD, to Receive Prestigious 2020 Perkin Medal (sci-america.org)

“MSE Seminar: From Conducting Polymers to Conducting Molecular Search, A Materials Pathway to the Perkin Medal”, University of Pennsylvania Department of Engineering, Penn Engineering Events, MSE Seminar: “From Conducting Polymers to Conducting Molecular Search A Materials Science Pathway to the Perkin Medal” (upenn.edu)