Roberta Coleman, the Willis F. Harrington Professor Emerita of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Delaware, died on August 15. She was 81 years old.
Dr. Coleman joined the faculty at the University of Delaware and taught there until her retirement in 2009. In 1985, she became the first woman to receive the University’s Francis Alison Award, the University of Delaware’s highest faculty honor.
Robin Morgan, provost at the University of Delaware stated that Professor Coleman “helped to pioneer our understanding of how protein structure relates to function. Throughout her career, Dr. Colman was also instrumental in supporting women and other underrepresented minorities in the sciences. The University of Delaware has been fortunate indeed to count her among its faculty.”
Professor Coleman was a summa cum laude graduate of Radcliffe College. She earned a Ph.D. in chemistry at Harvard University and went on to do postdoctoral research at the National Institutes of Health and Washington University in St. Louis. Before joining the faculty at the University of Delaware, Dr. Coleman taught in the department of biological chemistry at Harvard Medical School. For 17 years, she served as the executive editor of Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics.