Pauline Morrow Austin
Pauline "Polly" Morrow Austin (December 18, 1916 – August 29, 2011[1]) was an American physicist and meteorologist known for her work on weather radar.
Pauline Morrow Austin | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 18, 1916 |
| Died | August 29, 2011 (aged 94) |
| Spouse(s) | James Murdoch Austin |
| Children |
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Austin received a BA from Wilson College in 1938, an MA from Smith College in 1939, and a PhD in Physics from MIT in 1942. At MIT, Austin was student and protege of Julius Stratton, renowned electrical engineer and expert on electromagnetic theory. Austin's dissertation was on the theory of propagation of electromagnetic radiation through Earth's atmosphere.
Austin began her career in the MIT Radiation Laboratory, where she contributed to the development of Long Range Navigation ( LORAN) and radar in World War II. She was praised in the New York Times on January 18, 1942, as one of nine women contributing wartime science and technology. Her work contributed to the then new application of radar to weather. In 1946, she joined the newly formed MIT Weather Radar Project as the expert on electromagnetic theory. In 1947 she became a founding and only woman member of the American Meteorological Society's Committee on Radar Meteorology. From 1956-1980 she directed the Weather Radar Project. During her time as Director, she taught radar meteorology and advised graduate students in the MIT Department of Meteorology (now part of the MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences). Her research focused on the measurement of rain by radar and in 1974 her project deployed a shipborne radar to measure rainfall over the tropical ocean as part of the Global Atmospheric Research Program's Atlantic Tropical Experiment (GATE). In 2016 Austin was memorialized with an exhibit in the Green Building at MIT, and in 2017 MIT produced a biographical video highlighting her career as one of the first woman MIT Physics Ph.D.'s.
Personal life
Austin was married for 59 years to Dr. James Murdoch Austin, a long time Professor of Meteorology at MIT and early television weather forecaster. Pauline collaborated with him for some of the earliest inclusion of radar observations in television weather reports. Their two daughters are Doris A. Price of Annapolis, Maryland and Carol T. West of Gainesville, Florida.
Throughout most of her working and retired life, Austin was an avid golfer. In her later years, she volunteered at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
References
- http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2011/10/12/pauline_austin_developed_weather_radar_after_wwii/ Pauline Austin; developed weather radar after WWII