Carole Jordan

Dame Carole Jordan, DBE, FRS, FInstP, (born 19 July 1941) was the first ever female president of the Royal Astronomical Society. She was also only the third female recipient of its Gold Medal (in 2005, following Caroline Herschel in 1828 and Vera Rubin in 1996).

Education

She was educated at Harrow County Grammar School for Girls and University College London (BSc 1962; PhD 1965; Fellow 1991). Her first paper, written while she was still 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 problems in coronal research 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.
* Astrophysics Research Unit, Culham Laboratory:
** Post-doctoral research assistant 1969-71
** Senior Scientific Officer 1971-73
** Principal Scientific Officer 1973-76
* Wolfson Tutorial Fellow in Natural Science, Somerville College, Oxford 1976-
* University of Oxford: reader in physics 1994-96, professor of physics 1996-, head of the Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, 2003-

She has published papers on astrophysical plasma spectroscopy and structure and energy balance in cool star coronae.

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

Jordan was created a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) on 17 June 2006.

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 links

* [http://www-thphys.physics.ox.ac.uk/users/CaroleJordan/ Personal page]

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)