Valerie Dziubek Kuck transferred to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in the middle of her sophomore year. She graduated in 1961 with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry and earned her master’s degree in chemistry at Purdue University.
She joined the technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories in New Jersey and assisted in the drafting of the founding documents for the first women’s support group at Bell Labs. She was elected the group’s first president.
Dziubek-Kuck became active in the local section of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the largest technical society in the world. She went on to co-find a women chemists’ support group and was elected to the ACS Council.
She was appointed to several national committees, chaired five national committees and was elected to the ACS Board of Directors for three terms, during which she chaired the board’s awards committee. In her leadership roles, she increased the number of women and minorities proposed for committee appointment and leadership positions and improved the selection process. Those efforts led to a significant rise in the number of women receiving national awards.
In addition, she completed in-depth research on the training and hiring of women in STEM fields. She determined that women in chemistry were encountering more barriers than in other fields and presented her findings at universities and scientific meetings. The National Science Foundation published her research in peer-reviewed journals and wrote several book chapters.
When a significant research discovery was made public just two weeks before a national ACS meeting, Valerie sprang into action. She persuaded the ACS president to hold a session on high-temperature superconductors. Valerie quickly identified the key researchers and then presided over the tutorial. While there was no advanced publicity, 2,000 attended the session.
Two years later, another significant breakthrough was discovered before a meeting: cold fusion. She again persuaded the ACS president to hold a special symposium. This time 8,000 attended the symposium, which was covered in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and Time.
Valerie transitioned into a new role as a career consultant for the ACS. She helped design workshops designed to assist graduate students and postdocs in their careers. She also prepared and presented career workshops at colleges, universities and at ACS local, regional and national meetings. Hundreds of students and the unemployed benefitted from the presentations.
Valerie has received several awards from Bell Laboratories and from the ACS for her leadership, dedication and numerous efforts to help women and others in advancing their careers. She authored 41 publications, edited two books and has been granted 24 U.S. patents.