Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, a University of California, Davis, history professor known for her scholarship on Sir Isaac Newton, died March 29 of a heart attack while visiting the Grand Canyon. She was 63. Professor Dobbs taught and researched the history of science, specializing in early modern science and the history of alchemy and chemistry. She joined the UC Davis history department and the campus's program in the history and philosophy of science in 1991, after having been a history professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., for more than 15 years. Professor Dobbs earned her doctoral degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She held a master's degree in psychology from the University of Arkansas and a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Hendrix College in Arkansas. During her academic years, Professor Dobbs received several national fellowships. She was a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at the Henry E. Huntington Library, in San Marino; a National Science Foundation scholar; a National Humanities Center fellow; a Folger Shakespeare Library fellow; and a postdoctoral fellow with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Cambridge, England. Professor Dobbs wrote several books, including "The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy, or 'The Hunting of the Greene Lyon' " and "The Janus Faces of Genius: the Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought." Her newest book, "Newton and the Newtonians," which she co-wrote with Margaret C. Jacob, is forthcoming. She was a member of the History of Science Society, the British Society for the History of Science, Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, American Chemical Society and American Association of University Professors. In 1993, she was the History of Science Society's distinguished lecturer. Professor Dobbs is survived by her daughters, Kate Roan Dobbs Ariail, of Durham, N.C.; Gladys Rebecca Dobbs, also of Durham; Jean Frances Dobbs, of Boulder, Colo.; her son, George Byron Dobbs II, of Hartford, Conn.; her sister, Margaret Bishop, of San Antonio, Texas; and two grandchildren, Timothy Spenser Dobbs and Hannah Elizabeth Yacashin Dobbs, of Enfield, Conn. She is survived, also, by her companion of many years, Karen Halttunen, of Kensington, Calif. Donations in Professor Dobbs' memory may be made to the Betty Jo Dobbs Memorial Fund, in care of the Department of History, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, or to the Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs Scholarship Fund for female scholars in the history of science, P.O. Box 1271, Durham, N.C., 27702. -