The nuclear physicist Lise Meitner discovered the radiationless transition, later known as Auger emission process, named after a fellow researcher who independently discovered it after her.

She worked on nuclear fission alongside the chemist Otto Hahn. Process for which Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch provided an explanation. While this discovery led Otto Hahn to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1944, Meitner and Frisch were excluded.

Meitner received many other awards, including the 1966 Enrico Fermi Award alongside Hahn, and Strassman; and the chemical element meitnerium (Mt) is named in her honour.