27 Facts About Joan Feynman

Joan Feynman was an American astrophysicist and space physicist.

Joan Feynman made contributions to the study of solar wind particles and fields, sun-Earth relations, and magnetospheric physics.

Joan Feynman was known for creating a model that predicts the number of high-energy particles likely to hit a spacecraft over its lifetime, and for uncovering a method for predicting sunspot cycles.

Joan Feynman was particularly known for illuminating the origin of auroras.

Joan Feynman's parents were Lucille Feynman, a homemaker, and Melville Arthur Feynman, a businessman.

Joan Feynman was an inquisitive child, and she exhibited an interest in understanding the natural world from an early age.

Later, Joan Feynman found comfort in an astronomy book given to her by her brother.

Joan Feynman became convinced that she could, in fact, study science, when she came across a graph based on research by astronomer Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin.

Joan Feynman attended Oberlin College, where she helped create the first Jewish student congregation.

Joan Feynman earned a bachelor's degree in physics from in 1948.

Joan Feynman later attended Syracuse University, where she studied solid state theory in the physics department under Melvin Lax.

Joan Feynman was a co-author, along with her husband and Betty J Meggers, of a 1957 paper on anthropology.

Joan Feynman completed postdoctoral work at Columbia University's Lamont Geological Observatory.

Joan Feynman spent the bulk of her career studying the interactions between the solar wind and the Earth's magnetosphere.

In 1985 Joan Feynman accepted a position at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, where she remained until her retirement.

Joan Feynman made a critical discovery about the nature and cause of auroras.

Joan Feynman helped to develop a model for estimating the environmental hazards of the local space environment.

Joan Feynman was particularly interested in transient solar events and solar cycle variations.

Joan Feynman studied the influence of the sun on patterns of wintertime climate anomalies known as the Arctic oscillation or North Annular Mode.

In 1974, Joan Feynman became the first woman to be elected as an officer of the American Geophysical Union.

Joan Feynman organized an AGU committee charged with advancing the fair treatment of women within the geophysics community.

Joan Feynman was a long-standing member of the International Astronomical Union.

Joan Feynman retired from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a senior scientist in 2003.

Joan Feynman was twice elected secretary of the Solar and Interplanetary Physics Section of the American Geophysical Union.

In 2002, Joan Feynman was named as one of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's elite senior research scientists.

Joan Feynman met Hirshberg at Oberlin College, and they married in 1948, separated in 1974, and later divorced.

Joan Feynman was married to fellow astrophysicist Alexander Ruzmaikin from 1987 until her death.