Jenny Pickworth Glusker grew up in Birmingham, England. Her parents were physicians who had met through their work at a psychiatric hospital, and Glusker had a sister and a brother. She grew up attending a local Presbyterian church. When she was young, her father took her to see King George VI (1895-1952) and Queen Elizabeth (1900-2002) at an opening celebration of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Many of Glusker’s childhood memories are connected to World War II. She would often spend the night in the air raid shelter that her father had set up to protect the family from bombs. When the war ended, Glusker remembers an illuminated bus and street parties that were in Birmingham to celebrate the end of the war in Europe. Though her ability to travel was limited during the war, after the war, she traveled with a school group to Sweden. She also, after her undergraduate studies, took a trip to Morocco.

In Glusker’s early school days, there was an emphasis on math and spelling, and she learned practical skills such as cooking. She would have liked to do woodworking, but that was something that girls did not do in her school. When Glusker took her eleven-plus exam to place into high school, she did well and earned a scholarship to attend the King Edward VI High School for Girls. She loved chemistry and would read her mother’s textbook on incompatibles and experiment with chemicals that her father gave her. She was encouraged by her chemistry teacher, Yvonne Way, and had hands-on experience carrying out chemistry experiments in class. Glusker also studied Latin, German, and French in school.

Glusker decided to apply to university a year early. She took the necessary exams and interviewed for Somerville College of the University of Oxford with Dorothy Hodgkin (1910-1994). The unknown during the practical exam was sodium thiosulfate, which Glusker was familiar with from working in her father’s dark room. She demonstrated her familiarity with using scientific equipment during the exam and was admitted to Somerville College.

At the University of Oxford, Glusker says she was one of just five women in a group of over one hundred people studying chemistry. She had tutorials with Dorothy Hodgkin, who provided feedback on Glusker’s essays. Glusker describes recreational activities that students participated in, including sailing and going to dances, and she attended political lectures on campus. Glusker conducted undergraduate research in Harold Warris Thompson’s (1908-1983) lab. She researched infrared spectroscopy and deuterium chloride, which resulted in published papers. She was the first woman in Thompson’s lab and made friends with peers in the lab, including her future husband, Donald L. Glusker (1930-2000).

For her graduate studies, Glusker chose not to continue working with Thompson and instead went to work in Dorothy Hodgkin’s lab to study crystallography. When Hodgkin received small crystals of a derivative of vitamin B12, Glusker started working on the structure. Kenneth Trueblood (1920–1998) at the University of California, Los Angeles assisted by using newly developed computer technology. Glusker would also use computer card-reading machines in the Mathematical Institute late at night and employed diffraction maps and calculations in her analysis. Eventually, the structure of vitamin B12 was identified. Glusker gave the first talk about the findings from Hodgkin’s lab, and Hodgkin was excited to have the discovery presented. When Alexander R. Todd (1907-1997) would lecture about vitamin B12, Hodgkin would follow him to his lectures and explain to the audience how her lab had identified the structure.

Glusker went to Caltech to do a postdoctoral fellowship, and by that time was engaged to her future husband, Don, who was already working at Caltech. They had a small wedding in California. At Caltech, Glusker worked in the lab of Robert B. Corey (1897-1971) and conducted research on peptides.

After one year at Caltech, Glusker moved with her husband to Philadelphia. She began working for Lindo Patterson (1902-1966) at the Institute for Cancer Research, which later became Fox Chase Cancer Center. Initially, Patterson did not have enough money for her position, so she agreed to start her work as a technician. After a year, her role and title changed to be more reflective of her expertise. Glusker used crystallographic methods to research the Krebs cycle. She also conducted research on hydrocarbons that go into DNA, enzymes, and neutron diffraction. She had some researchers from abroad work in her lab. Also at the institution were award-winning scientists, including one of the scientists, David Hungerford (1927–1993), who discovered the Philadelphia chromosome. After Lindo Patterson’s death, Glusker took over running the lab.

In addition to her work at the Institute for Cancer Research, Glusker was an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She wrote a book with Kenneth Trueblood on crystal structure analysis that was translated into Russian and other languages. Glusker also stayed busy serving as a journal editor, volunteering in a local group enhancing science education, and traveling to set up schools around the world on crystallographic teaching.

Glusker explains how she approached work-life balance as she raised her three children and describes what the process was like for her to become a United States citizen. She talks about mentoring other women in the field and describes the influence of William Henry Bragg (1862-1942) on inclusion of women in the field of crystallography. She also discusses donating historical materials, including research equipment, to the Science History Institute. Throughout the interview, Glusker mentions her friendships and professional relationships with other scientists, including Dorothy Hodgkin, Dorothy Semenow, Linus Pauling (1901-1994), Lindo Patterson, Gabrielle “Gai” Donnay (1920-1987), Max Perutz (1914-2002), and others.

Glusker reflects on her achievements and the honors that she has received, sharing that she loved the work that she did throughout her career.