Radcliffe College

This is an interview with Claire Max, Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz, and Director of University of California Observatories. Max recounts her childhood in Manhattan, and she describes the formative influence of her father’s work in science on her blossoming academic interests. She describes her undergraduate education at Radcliffe where she pursued a degree in astronomy, and the opportunities leading to her graduate degree at Princeton where she studied pulsars under the direction of Francis Perkins. Max discusses her postdoctoral research at Berkeley working with Allan Kaufman and her subsequent work at Livermore Lab on laser plasma interactions, and where she did formative work developing laser guide stars for adaptive optics in astronomy. She describes her entrée into the JASON advisory group, and what it was like as the first woman to become a JASON. Max explains her decision to join the faculty at Santa Cruz, the opportunities leading to her directorship of the Observatory, and her interest in leading research in extrasolar planets. She reflects on some of the budgetary and administrative challenges she has faced at the Observatory, and she discusses some of the characteristics that her most successful graduate students have shared over the years. At the end of the interview, Max discusses the controversy over the Thirty Meter Telescope site in Hawaii, she explains why promoting diversity in the field is personally important to her, and why future advances in galaxy merger research are so promising.

In this interview with Kate Kirby, recently retired and now CEO Emerita of the American Physical Society, Kirby surveys the many challenges in leading APS during the pandemic, and she recounts her early childhood in Washington DC and then Chicago. She describes her early interests in science and her decision to attend Harvard-Radcliffe for her undergraduate education. Kirby discusses her gravitation toward physics after her initial intent to be pre-med, and she explains her decision to pursue thesis research in chemical physics at Chicago under the direction of Juergen Hinze before returning to Harvard for her postdoctoral research at the Harvard College Observatory which soon merged with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. She explains her decision to take a full time federal position at the Observatory and she describes her merging interests of chemical and atmospheric physics. Kirby narrates the steady advances in leadership positions she took on at the Observatory, and she describes her increasing involvement in APS activities. She explains the circumstances of becoming Executive Officer of APS in 2009 and she describes the central issue of corporate reform. Kirby describes the process of taking a broad view of the entirety of physics research from this vantage point and the value she places in growing APS membership. She discusses her emphasis on diversity and inclusivity in physics, particularly after the events of 2020, and she narrates her considerations about when to step down from leadership. At the end of the interview, Kirby considers some of the key challenges and opportunities as APS charts its future, she specifies science and ethics and a key area for APS to focus on, and she reflects on the gains women in physics have made over the course of her career.

In this interview, Joanna Behrman, Assistant Public Historian for AIP, interviews Margaret Kivelson, Distinguished Professor Emerita of Space Physics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Kivelson recounts her childhood in New York City and her decision to attend Radcliffe College. She describes her experiences attending graduate school at Harvard University and working with Julian Schwinger. Kivelson explains her decision to move out to California, to work at the RAND Corporation, and her efforts to secure a position at UCLA. Kivelson describes how UCLA became a hub for space physics research and her work on the magnetometers for various projects including OGO-5, Pioneer 11, and Galileo. Kivelson also discusses her work to improve the status of women in academia on the Harvard Board of Overseers and at UCLA.

Elske van Panhuys Smith discusses topics including: her childhood in Monaco, Austria, Holland, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and the United States of America; undergraduate education at Radcliffe with Harlow Shapley; marriage to Henry Smith; graduate school in astronomy at Harvard University with Bart Bok; job interviews with Leo Goldberg, Jesse Greenstein, Carnegie Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM), Jack Evans; job offer at Sacramento Peak; reception from graduate professors concerning solar astronomy; family life and children in Alamogordo; High Altitude Observatory; fellowship at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics in Boulder; move to Washington, DC for husband's job offer at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) headquarters; teaching position at the University of Maryland; American Astronomical Society (AAS) and the early years of the Solar Physics Division (SPD); discrimination against women in scence; Ed Dennison; Donald Menze; Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) teaching and administration in the College of Humanities and Science; research at the Naval Observatory and Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff.

Family background, education, and emergence of scientific orientation. Undergraduate years at Wellesley College (1912-1916); description of physics department. Assistant examiner in U.S. Patent Office during World War I. At MIT under E.B. Wilson as graduate student and laboratory assistant, then lab instructor (1920-24). Returned to MIT for doctoral work in 1928. Mathematical physics thesis under Norbert Wiener, while teaching at Wellesley. Depression years brought teaching position at Wilson College (1930-43), used Wellesley as model. Work on Zeeman Pattern earns her Guggenheim Fellowship (1949-50) at MIT and European labs. World War II years as head of OSRD British Report Section. Returned to Wilson (1945-56), worked part-time at National Science Foundation (1953-56). Retirement years including affiliation with U.S. Army and spectroscopic work at Harvard College Observatory. Comments on women in physics in U.S., her own opportunities, and teaching in general.

Family history. Margaret Harwood’s lectures at Maria Mitchell Observatory in Nantucket; B.A. from Barnard College, 1925; work with Harlow Shapley at Harvard University, 1926; funding of astronomy projects and Shapley’s other interests in phenomena of nature. M.A. from Radcliffe, 1928. Other female astronomers: Helen Hogg, Antonia Maury, Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin; marriage of the Gaposchkins. Her paper at dedication of Tonantzintla Observatory. Work on LORAN navigation tables with Fletcher Watson during World War II; position at Barnard and Columbia; lecturer at Connecticut College for Women. Work as Walter Baade’s assistant at Hale Observatory, Baade’s work style and influence; Ira S. Bowen, Edwin P. Hubble, disputes among Shapley, Hubble and Baade. History of Swope’s work on variable stars, direct observation in Australia with Bart Bok, 1965; work with Margaret Mayall in American Association of Variable Star Observers. History of technique and changes in astronomy. History of attitudes towards women in astronomy; view of her own role and work in astronomy.

In this interview Katherine Harris discusses topics such as: her childhood and family background; going to school at Radcliffe College; getting her doctorate at Harvard; her time at the City University of New York (CUNY) and Haskins Laboratories; speech production; her time with the Acoustical Society of America and her presidency; Ira Hirsh; J. C. R. Licklider; George Miller; Fred Skinner; Franklin Cooper.

Years from undergraduate days at Radcliffe College, 1961, through research at California Institute of Technology, to 1973: scientific work, evolution of career objectives, and history of marriage. Charles H. Townes' MIT research group on nonlinear optics, Caltech as an environment for women scientists; fall and subsequent rise of self-confidence as a scientist. Also prominently mentioned are: Ray Chiao, Edward Mills Purcell, Ron Shen, Amnon Yariv; and Harvard University.

In this interview, Alice Armstrong discusses: her family and childhood; her time at Wellesley College; her work at the Bureau of Standards radiation lab, inlcuding the radiation standard and her first radiation accident; her time at Radcliffe College; x-ray induced illness; and her interactions with Marie Curie, P. W. Bridgman, O. D. Kellogg, William Duane, Emory Leon Chaffee, Theodore Lyman, and Robert Havighurst.