Carole Jordan
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Dame Carole Jordan DBE (born 19 July 1941) was the first ever female president of the Royal Astronomical Society. She was also only the third female recipient of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (in 2005, following Caroline Herschel in 1828 and Vera Rubin in 1996).
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Education
She was educated at Harrow County Grammar School for Girls and University College, London (BSc 1962; PhD 1965; Fellow 1991). Her first paper, writen while she was an undergraduate, was on the distortion of lunar craters. Her PhD studies under C. W. Allen included crucial identification of iron and other lines in the solar spectrum, early ionisation-balance calculations, development of density-diagnostic methods using the iron lines, calculation of relative element abundances and modelling from emission-measure distributions. She published a paper on coronal problems in 1965.Career
- Research associate, Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics, University of Colorado at Boulder 1966
- Assistant Lecturer, Department of Astronomy, UCL, attached to the Spectroscopy Division of UKAEA Culham Laboratory 1966-69
- During this time, she completed her ionisation-balance calculations and the identification of some forbidden lines and satellite lines. In 1969, she started to devise methods to obtain the structure of the Solar transition region.
Positions held and honours
- Royal Astronomical Society: Fellow, 1966; secretary, 1981-90; vice-president, 1990-91 and 1996-97; president, 1994-96.
- Member of the International Astronomical Union, 1967
- Editor of The Observatory, 1968-73
- Fellow of the Institute of Physics, 1973
- Fellow of the Royal Society, 1990
- Doctor of the University of Surrey, 1991
- Member of the Science and Engineering Research Council, 1985-90 (Chairman, Solar System Committee, 1983-86; Member, Astronomy, Space and Radio Board, 1979-86; Member, Astronomy and Planetary Science Board, 1986-90)
- Member of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, 1994-97
Scientific work
Prof. Jordan has been one of the world's leading pioneers in solar physics. The start of her work in this area coincided with the beginning of a new age that was inaugurated by the first use of rockets for ultra-violet studies. There have been simultaneous great advances in relevant physical theory, and again Prof. Jordan has helped to lead the world.Following the launch of the International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite in 1978, she turned her attention to stellar coronal and chromospheric activity. Her knowledge of solar activity enabled her to help develop this new branch of astrophysics.
Since about 1980, she has been a key member of nearly every team, in the UK, Europe and the USA, concerned with the development and use of instruments for the studies of ultra-violet and x-ray spectra of the sun and of the stars.
Personal
She was married (1971-83) to Culham Laboratory colleague Richard Peckover.External link
References
- Debrett's People of Today, 2006
- Who's Who, 2006
- Astronomy and Geophysics, August 2005, p4.39 (Gold medal citation)
- The Observatory, October 2005, p294-5 (Account of presentation of Gold medal)
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