--- title: Google Doodle Is Celebrating Katsuko Saruhashi. Here's Why description: Thursday's Google Doodle celebrates pioneering female geochemist Katsuko Saruhashi on what would have been her 98th birthday. canonical: https://time.com/5210207/katsuko-saruhashi-google-doodle/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-03-22T02:28:49.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-12T21:04:45.000Z og:title: Google Doodle Is Celebrating Katsuko Saruhashi. Here's Why og:description: The female Japanese scientist broke many glass ceilings og:url: https://time.com/5210207/katsuko-saruhashi-google-doodle/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf666d7a5d901a895/69892b98fb4eac5d9e89618b/katsuko-saruhashis-98th-birthday-google-doodle.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: katsuko-saruhashis-98th-birthday-google doodle og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Google Doodle Is Celebrating Katsuko Saruhashi. Here's Why twitter:description: The female Japanese scientist broke many glass ceilings twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf666d7a5d901a895/69892b98fb4eac5d9e89618b/katsuko-saruhashis-98th-birthday-google-doodle.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 5 Things You Should Know About Pioneering Geochemist Katsuko Saruhashi ## Video: How Google Makes its Doodles [Watch (HLS stream): How Google Makes its Doodles](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/upF0qp1E.m3u8) (3:23)  _Published 2018-07-07. Our videographer went to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California to meet some of the designers and coders who create the special, clever variations on the Google.com logo known as_ by [TIME](https://time.com/author/time/) ## TIME Contributor Updated: Dec 12, 2023 9:04 PM UTCPublished: Mar 22, 2018 2:28 AM UTC  On March 22, 2018 Google's doodle honors pioneering geochemist Katsuko Saruhashi on what would have been her 98th birthday. On March 22, 2018 Google's doodle honors pioneering geochemist Katsuko Saruhashi on what would have been her 98th birthday.Google Doodle by [TIME](https://time.com/author/time/) ## TIME Contributor Updated: Dec 12, 2023 9:04 PM UTCPublished: Mar 22, 2018 2:28 AM UTC Thursday’s Google Doodle celebrates pioneering geochemist Katsuko Saruhashi on what would have been her 98th birthday. Saruhashi’s groundbreaking research focused on acid rain, radioactivity spread through oceans, and CO2 levels in seawater. ## 1\. Saruhashi broke many glass ceilings She was the first woman to earn a PhD in chemistry from the University of Tokyo in 1957, the first woman elected to the Science Council of Japan in 1980, and the first woman to win the Miyake Prize for geochemistry in 1985, an award named after [her mentor](https://books.google.com.hk/books?redir%5Fesc=y&id=U51zs-HHchQC&dq=Katsuko+Saruhashi+articles+in+japanese&q=Katsuko+Saruhashi#v=snippet&q=Katsuko%20Saruhashi&f=false), Miyake Yasuo. ## 2\. To promote more women in the science, Saruhashi also started the Society of Japanese Women Scientists The mission of the society, established in 1958, is to have more women contributing to sciences and [world peace](http://www.sjws.info/english/index.html). “There are many women who have the ability to become great scientists. I would like to see the day when women can contribute to science and technology on an equal footing with men,” she once said.  Geochemist Katsuko Saruhashi speaks during an interview on August 23, 1999 in Japan. Sankei Archive/Getty Images ## 3\. Saruhashi’s first major contribution to the field involved a methodology to determine CO2 levels in seawater She was the first to determine carbonic acid levels based on temperature, pH Level, and chlorinity. Today, oceanographers call this “Saruhashi’s Table”. ## 4\. Saruhashi’s second major area of research was to quantify nuclear pollution caused by testing in the 1950s She measured the amount of radioactivity in seawater and found that fallout from U.S. atomic tests in the Marshall Islands in the 1950s [reached Japan](https://books.google.com.hk/books?id=428i2UdWRRAC&pg=PA264&lpg=PA264&dq=%22Saruhashi%22+year+and+a+half+for+the+radioactivity+to+reach+Japan+in+the+seawater&source=bl&ots=tNJOrmfgs%5F&sig=yYCVIVHlKcHklnMHjVd7fahRf6A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDg56b6%5F7ZAhXLqlQKHW%5FNCzUQ6AEIOTAD#v=onepage&q&f=false) after about a year and a half. Her findings on how radioactivity spreads helped led to restrictions on oceanic nuclear experimentation in 1963. ## 5\. In 1981, Saruhashi founded the Saruhashi Prize The Saruhashi Prize is an annual award to recognize the research contributions of female scientists. She died in 2007 of pneumonia. Google’s Doodle remembers Saruhashi with an illustration that depicts her with a clipboard in front of a turbulent blue sea. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5210207/katsuko-saruhashi-google-doodle/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5210207/katsuko-saruhashi-google-doodle/"},"headline":"5 Things You Should Know About Pioneering Geochemist Katsuko Saruhashi","datePublished":"2018-03-22T02:28:49.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-12T21:04:45.000Z","description":"As a female scientist working in the 1950s and 60s, Saruhashi broke many glass ceilings","url":"https://time.com/5210207/katsuko-saruhashi-google-doodle/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Google Doodle","onetime","overnight"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf666d7a5d901a895/69892b98fb4eac5d9e89618b/katsuko-saruhashis-98th-birthday-google-doodle.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","jobTitle":"Contributor","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf666d7a5d901a895/69892b98fb4eac5d9e89618b/katsuko-saruhashis-98th-birthday-google-doodle.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"katsuko-saruhashis-98th-birthday-google doodle","caption":"On March 22, 2018 Google's doodle honors pioneering geochemist Katsuko Saruhashi on what would have been her 98th birthday.","creditText":"Google Doodle","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5210207/katsuko-saruhashi-google-doodle/","name":"5 Things You Should Know About Pioneering Geochemist Katsuko Saruhashi"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"How Google Makes its Doodles","description":"Our videographer went to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California to meet some of the designers and coders who create the special, clever variations on the Google.com logo known as","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/upF0qp1E/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2018-07-07T16:09:57.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/upF0qp1E.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5210207/katsuko-saruhashi-google-doodle/","duration":"PT3M23S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5210207/katsuko-saruhashi-google-doodle/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```