Jean McPherson Bennett, China Lake, CA physicist with a worldwide reputation and on of the community's most generous benefactors, died of natural causes on Friday, 18 Jul 2008, at her home in Ridgecrest, CA.
Jean was born in Kensington, MD, a suburb of Washington, DC, on 9 May 1930. After graduating from Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, MD, she graduated summa cum laude with a double major in physics and chemistry from Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA.
She earned advanced degrees from Pennsylvania State University (the first woman to receive a Ph.D in physics from Penn State), then began a year-long job in atmospheric physics at Wright Air Development Center, Dayton, OH.
Having received a job offer from the Navy's lab in Corona, CA, she saw on a California map that the Navy had another lab, Naval Ordnance Test Station, quite close to the Sierra Nevada. She was an avid outdoor adventurer, and that proximity to hiking and exploring opportunities suddenly made her much more interested in China Lake. After some correspondence with a scientist she knew at China Lake, she was offered a job and arrived in October 1956.
Jean's career here began with participation in programs in the Physics Division of the NOTS Research Department involving the generation of super-smooth optical surfaces. She became engrossed in measuring surface finish, an area of research to which she would devote her creative research efforts for the rest of her life.
In 1985, she received a National Science Foundation Professorship for Women in Science and began a year-and-a-half sabbatical at the Center for applied Optics, University of Alabama, where she set up a surface characterization laboratory and taught courses on the subject.
In 1994, she received a second NSF professorship, and that time she spent her year and a half at her alma mater, where she taught an optics laboratory and collaborated on research projects with faculty and students at nearby Smith College.
During her China Lake career, she published more than 100 articles in scientific journals, held three patents and presented numerous papers at scientific meetings. Her book, Introduction to Surface Roughness and Scattering, co-authored with her friend and colleague, Dr. Lars Mattsson of Sweden, became a classic in the field and was published internationally.
Jean was also a guest professor in Sweden, Japan and Australia and lectured in the US, Canada, Europe, Russia, Brazil, Japan and Taiwan.
She was a fellow of the Optical Society of America and became the first woman to hold the position of OSA president in 1986. She received the L.T.E. Thompson Award, China Lake's highest honor, in 1988. Among hr many other awards and honors were the Lifetime Achievement Award of Women Scientists & Engineers, an honorary doctorate from Mount Holyoke College and Outstanding Science Alumni from Penn State.
In December 1995, she officially retired from the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, but she continued to work as a volunteer in her Michelson Lab office and to consult with companies and colleagues worldwide.
Published in The Daily Independent, Ridgecrest, CA, 23 Jul 2008.
Jean was born in Kensington, MD, a suburb of Washington, DC, on 9 May 1930. After graduating from Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, MD, she graduated summa cum laude with a double major in physics and chemistry from Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA.
She earned advanced degrees from Pennsylvania State University (the first woman to receive a Ph.D in physics from Penn State), then began a year-long job in atmospheric physics at Wright Air Development Center, Dayton, OH.
Having received a job offer from the Navy's lab in Corona, CA, she saw on a California map that the Navy had another lab, Naval Ordnance Test Station, quite close to the Sierra Nevada. She was an avid outdoor adventurer, and that proximity to hiking and exploring opportunities suddenly made her much more interested in China Lake. After some correspondence with a scientist she knew at China Lake, she was offered a job and arrived in October 1956.
Jean's career here began with participation in programs in the Physics Division of the NOTS Research Department involving the generation of super-smooth optical surfaces. She became engrossed in measuring surface finish, an area of research to which she would devote her creative research efforts for the rest of her life.
In 1985, she received a National Science Foundation Professorship for Women in Science and began a year-and-a-half sabbatical at the Center for applied Optics, University of Alabama, where she set up a surface characterization laboratory and taught courses on the subject.
In 1994, she received a second NSF professorship, and that time she spent her year and a half at her alma mater, where she taught an optics laboratory and collaborated on research projects with faculty and students at nearby Smith College.
During her China Lake career, she published more than 100 articles in scientific journals, held three patents and presented numerous papers at scientific meetings. Her book, Introduction to Surface Roughness and Scattering, co-authored with her friend and colleague, Dr. Lars Mattsson of Sweden, became a classic in the field and was published internationally.
Jean was also a guest professor in Sweden, Japan and Australia and lectured in the US, Canada, Europe, Russia, Brazil, Japan and Taiwan.
She was a fellow of the Optical Society of America and became the first woman to hold the position of OSA president in 1986. She received the L.T.E. Thompson Award, China Lake's highest honor, in 1988. Among hr many other awards and honors were the Lifetime Achievement Award of Women Scientists & Engineers, an honorary doctorate from Mount Holyoke College and Outstanding Science Alumni from Penn State.
In December 1995, she officially retired from the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, but she continued to work as a volunteer in her Michelson Lab office and to consult with companies and colleagues worldwide.
Published in The Daily Independent, Ridgecrest, CA, 23 Jul 2008.
Jean McPherson Bennett, China Lake, CA physicist with a worldwide reputation and on of the community's most generous benefactors, died of natural causes on Friday, 18 Jul 2008, at her home in Ridgecrest, CA.
Jean was born in Kensington, MD, a suburb of Washington, DC, on 9 May 1930. After graduating from Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, MD, she graduated summa cum laude with a double major in physics and chemistry from Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA.
She earned advanced degrees from Pennsylvania State University (the first woman to receive a Ph.D in physics from Penn State), then began a year-long job in atmospheric physics at Wright Air Development Center, Dayton, OH.
Having received a job offer from the Navy's lab in Corona, CA, she saw on a California map that the Navy had another lab, Naval Ordnance Test Station, quite close to the Sierra Nevada. She was an avid outdoor adventurer, and that proximity to hiking and exploring opportunities suddenly made her much more interested in China Lake. After some correspondence with a scientist she knew at China Lake, she was offered a job and arrived in October 1956.
Jean's career here began with participation in programs in the Physics Division of the NOTS Research Department involving the generation of super-smooth optical surfaces. She became engrossed in measuring surface finish, an area of research to which she would devote her creative research efforts for the rest of her life.
In 1985, she received a National Science Foundation Professorship for Women in Science and began a year-and-a-half sabbatical at the Center for applied Optics, University of Alabama, where she set up a surface characterization laboratory and taught courses on the subject.
In 1994, she received a second NSF professorship, and that time she spent her year and a half at her alma mater, where she taught an optics laboratory and collaborated on research projects with faculty and students at nearby Smith College.
During her China Lake career, she published more than 100 articles in scientific journals, held three patents and presented numerous papers at scientific meetings. Her book, Introduction to Surface Roughness and Scattering, co-authored with her friend and colleague, Dr. Lars Mattsson of Sweden, became a classic in the field and was published internationally.
Jean was also a guest professor in Sweden, Japan and Australia and lectured in the US, Canada, Europe, Russia, Brazil, Japan and Taiwan.
She was a fellow of the Optical Society of America and became the first woman to hold the position of OSA president in 1986. She received the L.T.E. Thompson Award, China Lake's highest honor, in 1988. Among hr many other awards and honors were the Lifetime Achievement Award of Women Scientists & Engineers, an honorary doctorate from Mount Holyoke College and Outstanding Science Alumni from Penn State.
In December 1995, she officially retired from the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, but she continued to work as a volunteer in her Michelson Lab office and to consult with companies and colleagues worldwide.
Published in The Daily Independent, Ridgecrest, CA, 23 Jul 2008.
Jean was born in Kensington, MD, a suburb of Washington, DC, on 9 May 1930. After graduating from Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, MD, she graduated summa cum laude with a double major in physics and chemistry from Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA.
She earned advanced degrees from Pennsylvania State University (the first woman to receive a Ph.D in physics from Penn State), then began a year-long job in atmospheric physics at Wright Air Development Center, Dayton, OH.
Having received a job offer from the Navy's lab in Corona, CA, she saw on a California map that the Navy had another lab, Naval Ordnance Test Station, quite close to the Sierra Nevada. She was an avid outdoor adventurer, and that proximity to hiking and exploring opportunities suddenly made her much more interested in China Lake. After some correspondence with a scientist she knew at China Lake, she was offered a job and arrived in October 1956.
Jean's career here began with participation in programs in the Physics Division of the NOTS Research Department involving the generation of super-smooth optical surfaces. She became engrossed in measuring surface finish, an area of research to which she would devote her creative research efforts for the rest of her life.
In 1985, she received a National Science Foundation Professorship for Women in Science and began a year-and-a-half sabbatical at the Center for applied Optics, University of Alabama, where she set up a surface characterization laboratory and taught courses on the subject.
In 1994, she received a second NSF professorship, and that time she spent her year and a half at her alma mater, where she taught an optics laboratory and collaborated on research projects with faculty and students at nearby Smith College.
During her China Lake career, she published more than 100 articles in scientific journals, held three patents and presented numerous papers at scientific meetings. Her book, Introduction to Surface Roughness and Scattering, co-authored with her friend and colleague, Dr. Lars Mattsson of Sweden, became a classic in the field and was published internationally.
Jean was also a guest professor in Sweden, Japan and Australia and lectured in the US, Canada, Europe, Russia, Brazil, Japan and Taiwan.
She was a fellow of the Optical Society of America and became the first woman to hold the position of OSA president in 1986. She received the L.T.E. Thompson Award, China Lake's highest honor, in 1988. Among hr many other awards and honors were the Lifetime Achievement Award of Women Scientists & Engineers, an honorary doctorate from Mount Holyoke College and Outstanding Science Alumni from Penn State.
In December 1995, she officially retired from the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, but she continued to work as a volunteer in her Michelson Lab office and to consult with companies and colleagues worldwide.
Published in The Daily Independent, Ridgecrest, CA, 23 Jul 2008.
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