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Science & Medicine

Joan Feynman

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Who

Joan Feynman · Science & Medicine

What

Astrophysicist of the solar wind and the aurora; established the mechanism linking coronal mass ejections to magnetic storms and built the model of high-energy particle risk used to design spacecraft

When

31 March 1927, New York City, United States — 21 July 2020, Ventura, California, United States

Where

United States

Biography

Joan Feynman is recognized among Jewish contributors to Science & Medicine — Astrophysicist of the solar wind and the aurora; established the mechanism linking coronal mass ejections to magnetic storms and built the model of high-energy particle risk used to design spacecraft

How & why

Joan Feynman's parents were Ashkenazi Jews from Minsk and Poland; at Oberlin she helped found the college's first Jewish student congregation. Told as a child that women's brains could not do science, she took a doctorate in solid-state physics and spent a career at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explaining how coronal mass ejections cause auroras and magnetic storms and producing the statistical model of high-energy particle exposure still used to design spacecraft.

Sources & external links

Verify and go deeper with these external references.

Source: Wikipedia — Joan Feynman

Contributions & Sources

Astrophysicist of the solar wind and the aurora; established the mechanism linking coronal mass ejections to magnetic storms and built the model of high-energy particle risk used to design spacecraft

1974

Source: Wikipedia — Joan Feynman