Early Life and Education Sponer was born in
Neisse (Nysa),
Prussian Silesia, in 1895 and was the eldest of children to Robert Franz Sponer, a stationary merchant, and Elizabeth Helene Ottilie Heerde. Her younger sister was
Margot Sponer. She then enrolled at the
University of Göttingen where she received her PhD in 1920 under the supervision of
Peter Debye. Her dissertation was titled "Über ultrarote Absorption zweiatomiger Gase". In her last semester as a graduate student, she was appointed as an aide to mathematician
David Hilbert to read and discuss theoretical physics papers with him. He then served as an examiner on her oral examination in March 1920.
Career After obtaining her doctorate, Sponer spent a year working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry, where she first collaborated with
James Franck. During her time at Berkeley, she collaborated with
R. T. Birge, developing what is now called the
Birge-Sponer method for determining dissociation energies. By 1932, Sponer had published around 20 scientific papers in journals such as
Nature and
Physical Review, and had become an associate professor of physics. In 1933 James Franck resigned and left Göttingen and a year later she was dismissed from her position when
Hitler came to power, due to the Nazis' stigma against women in academia. In 1934 Sponer moved to
Oslo to teach at the
University of Oslo as a visiting professor, and in 1936 she started her appointment at
Duke University where she remained as a professor until 1966 when she became professor emeritus, a position she held until her death in 1968. During her academic career, Sponer conducted research in quantum mechanics, physics, and chemistry. She authored and published numerous studies, many of which were in collaboration with famous physicists including
Edward Teller. She made many contributions to science including the application of quantum mechanics to molecular physics and work on the spectra of near ultra-violet absorption. She set up a
spectroscopy lab in the physics department of Duke University, which was later moved to its own new building. Sponer married
James Franck in 1946. She died in
Ilten,
Lower Saxony. ==Selected publications==