Katherine Turner Alben ’69

When Katherine Turner Alben ’69 attended a presentation by the Seven Sisters colleges at her high school in Bellevue, Washington, one presenter made a particularly strong impression. “The alum from Mount Holyoke was down-to-earth, active in the outdoors and most like me,” she recalls. Katherine knew that Mount Holyoke had a strong reputation in the sciences including chemistry, the subject that became her major at the College, followed by Ph.D. training in physical chemistry at Yale University. Coincidentally, Katherine’s mother, Mary Haberzetle Turner, taught mathematics at Mount Holyoke at the beginning of her career. A first-generation college student, Mary attended Saint Xavier University (then a women’s college) and earned a doctorate at the University of Chicago — a rare accomplishment for a woman in the 1930s. Mary went on to teach at Queens College, CUNY and Seattle University.

In 2019, Katherine and her husband, Richard Alben (a physicist), created the Mary B. Haberzetle Turner Charitable Remainder Unitrust to support the Department of Chemistry and honor Mary’s legacy. Their trust provides income and tax benefits to simplify their finances now and a future gift that, in Katherine’s words, fulfills “a responsibility we feel to Mount Holyoke and the other institutions that provided our education.”

In the Department of Chemistry, Katherine was taught by a dedicated team of faculty members, including Anna Harrison, who became the first female president of the American Chemical Society. Katherine’s undergraduate years were also shaped by the lifelong friendships she forged with classmates, the rich learning community among chemistry students and the lasting memories, from the apple pancakes for Sunday breakfast at North Rockefeller to the “ever-changing views of Upper and Lower Lakes from 1837 and MacGregor” and “the long-lost, pleasant sound of my electric typewriter.”

“While working and raising our family, I used every bit of my education, including the distribution requirements,” Katherine says. “To me, a good education is one that sustains you for life and enables you to change when needed.” She blazed new trails as a research scientist and chemist for 40 years at the New York State Department of Health and as a faculty member at the University at Albany School of Public Health. “Environmental chemistry didn’t exist when I was a student. It was all pure science, very little applied, so we were creating a new field.” Her research initially focused on contaminants in drinking water and later transitioned to analyses of beneficial organic compounds synthesized by phytoplankton in natural waters, such as wetlands and the Great Lakes. She’s especially proud to have helped prepare her students for successful careers that apply state-of-the-art methods of analysis to health and environmental science.

Katherine and Richard, who have three children and eight grandchildren, enjoy living in Schenectady, New York, their home for 48 years. In 2024, Katherine received a citation from the American Chemical Society for 50 years of membership. “I always regarded my ACS membership as part of fulfilling my responsibility to the Mount Holyoke chemistry department and Anna Harrison in particular,” she says. In her life, career and philanthropy, Katherine reflects the down-to-earth spirit she noticed decades ago in the Mount Holyoke alum who visited her high school. “Mount Holyoke provided me an education that served me well for my whole life. It’s that simple.” Through the Mary B. Haberzetle Turner Charitable Remainder Unitrust, she and Richard will enable future students in the sciences to access a life-sustaining education that they can draw upon throughout their careers. “The world changes,” Katherine says, which makes a Mount Holyoke education more valuable than ever.