Nancy Crooker facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Nancy Crooker
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| Born | April 1, 1944 Chicago, USA
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| Citizenship | United States |
| Alma mater | University of California, Los Angeles |
| Occupation | Researcher |
| Employer | Boston University |
Nancy U. Crooker (born April 1, 1944) is an American physicist. She is a professor emerita of space physics at Boston University in Massachusetts. Professor Crooker has greatly helped us understand geomagnetism. This is the study of Earth's magnetic field. She also studied the magnetosphere, which is Earth's magnetic bubble, and the heliosphere, which is the Sun's magnetic bubble. She learned a lot by studying tiny particles called electrons and how magnetic fields connect and disconnect, a process called magnetic reconnection.
Early life and education
Nancy Crooker was born in Chicago in 1944. Her father, Michael Uss, came from Lithuania as a child. He worked as a foreman for a railroad company. Her mother, Helen Narovec, was a housewife.
Crooker earned her first degree in physics from Knox College in Illinois. She then got a master's degree in Meteorology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In 1972, she received her PhD in Atmospheric Sciences from UCLA. Her PhD paper was about changes in Earth's magnetic field.
Research career
Nancy Crooker has written many scientific papers. As of 2019, she had published 207 articles. These papers cover many topics in space physics.
Early in her career, in the 1970s, she was a researcher at Cornell University. Then she worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There, she worked with Joan Feynman. They were among the first scientists to use data about Earth's magnetic field. This helped them learn about the Sun's activity before we had spacecraft. In 1979, Crooker developed an idea about how magnetic field lines connect and disconnect in Earth's magnetosphere. This idea was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
In 1990, she went back to UCLA as a professor. In 1994, she moved to Boston University as a research professor. Around this time, Crooker started focusing on the heliosphere. She studied how big bursts of energy from the Sun, called coronal mass ejections, travel through space. In 1997, she helped edit a book about coronal mass ejections. In 2002, she created the term "interchange reconnection." This term describes how magnetic energy from coronal mass ejections is removed from the heliosphere. This term is now widely used in her field.
From 2004 to 2006, Crooker was president of the Space Physics & Aeronomy Section of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). She is also a fellow of the American Geophysical Union. This honor is given to AGU members who have made amazing discoveries in Earth and space science. In 2013, she received the special Eugene Parker Lecture award from the AGU. She was only the third woman to receive this award.
She has worked closely with other famous space physicists for many years. These include John T. Gosling, Marcia Neugebauer, Mike Lockwood, Chris Russell, and Thomas Zurbuchen.
Scientific contributions
Nancy Crooker has served on many important committees and groups during her career. Some of these include:
- AGU Fellows Program Review Task Force (2015)
- A founding member of the new executive board for the American Geophysical Union (2010)
- A media panel member for the NASA Ulysses spacecraft media teleconference (2008)
- Working group leader for an International Space Science Institute (ISSI) workshop (1998)
- Interviewed by CNN about solar storms (1997)
- Chair of the AGU Awards Committee for Solar-Planetary Relations Section (1988-1990)
Awards and honors
- The Eugene Parker Lecture is given to a space scientist who has made important contributions to solar and heliospheric science. Nancy Crooker received this honor in 2013.
- President of the AGU Space Physics & Aeronomy Section (2004 to 2006)
- Member of the Solar Heliospheric and Interplanetary Environment (SHINE) Steering Committee (1995-2002)
- Solar Heliospheric Secretary for Space Physics & Aeronomy Section of AGU (2000-2002)
- Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (2000)
- Member of the NASA Magnetospheric Management Operations Working Group (1995-1996)
- Received an Editor's Citation for Excellence in Refereeing for the Journal of Geophysical Research (1993) and Geophysical Research Letters (1996). This means she was excellent at reviewing other scientists' papers.
