Carol Jane Anger Rieke facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Carol Jane Anger Rieke
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Carol Jane Anger Rieke, from a 1938 photograph
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Carol Jane Anger
January 17, 1908 |
| Died | December 31, 1999 (aged 91) Tucson, Arizona
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| Nationality | American |
| Other names | Carol A. Rieke |
| Occupation | Astronomer |
Carol Jane Anger Rieke (born January 17, 1908 – died December 31, 1999) was an amazing American scientist. She was an astronomer, which means she studied stars and space. She was also a computational chemist, using computers to understand chemicals. On top of that, she was a mathematics educator, teaching math to students. She even worked with a Nobel Prize winner named Robert S. Mulliken.
Early Life and School
Carol Jane Anger grew up in Evanston, Illinois. She went to Northwestern University and was a brilliant student. She earned many awards there. One interesting award she won in 1926 was for being the "best woman rifle shot in the University."
After Northwestern, she went to Radcliffe College for her advanced studies in astronomy. She worked at Harvard with famous astronomers like Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin and Harlow Shapley. In 1932, she earned her Ph.D. (a very high degree). Her advisor was another Nobel Prize winner, John Hasbrouck Van Vleck. Her special project, called "Spectroscopic Parallaxes of Galactic and Moving Clusters," won an award for the best Radcliffe thesis that year.
She then spent a year at Harvard Observatory. She received a special fellowship from the American Association of University Women. Later, Carol Rieke did more research on computational chemistry at the University of Chicago. She worked with Nobel Prize winner Robert S. Mulliken again.
Her Scientific Career
Carol Jane Anger became a member of the American Astronomical Society in 1930. This was a big step for her career. After she got married, her science work often depended on where her husband's job took them.
She kept doing her astronomy research at the Harvard Observatory. In 1938, she went to a big science meeting in Washington. She was the only woman scientist there. She stood with other famous scientists like John von Neumann and Edward Teller in the group photos.
When she lived in Chicago, she wrote scientific papers with Robert S. Mulliken. During World War II, she moved to Massachusetts. There, she worked on radar countermeasures, which helped protect against enemy radar.
After the war, her husband got a job at Purdue University. However, university rules meant she couldn't also be a professor there. Instead, she taught mathematics. When they moved back to Chicago, she taught math at South Suburban College. She also started her chemistry research with Mulliken again.
Carol Rieke wrote many important scientific papers. Some of them include:
- "A study of the spectrum of alpha2 Canum Venaticorum" (1929)
- "Wave-Length Standards in the Extreme Ultraviolet" (1936)
- "Molecular electronic spectra, dispersion and polarization" (1940, with Mulliken)
- "Hyperconjugation" (1941, with Mulliken)
- "Bond Integrals and Spectra" (1942, with Mulliken)
Besides her science work, Carol Rieke was also involved in her community. She was an elected member of the Bremen Community High School District 228 Board of Education from 1957 to 1963. This was while her children were in school there. She also helped with the League of Women Voters and the Girl Scouts in Chicago. She was active in the Harvard-Radcliffe Club of Chicago too.
South Suburban College even named an annual scholarship after her. This scholarship helps other students.
Her Family Life
Carol Jane Anger married a physicist named Foster Frederick Rieke in 1932. They had two children, a son named George and a daughter named Katharine.
Their son, George H. Rieke, followed in his mother's footsteps. He became an astronomer too! He married another astronomer, Marcia J. Rieke. Their daughter, Katharine Rieke Lawson, works at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
Carol A. Rieke's husband, Foster Rieke, passed away in 1970. She lived until the end of 1999, passing away at 91 years old in Tucson, Arizona.
See also
In Spanish: Carol Jane Anger Rieke para niños
