Marjorie Diane Blasius Corcoran (1950 – February 3, 2017) was an American particle physicist who worked as a professor at Rice University.[1]

Biography

Born as Marjorie Blasius, she grew up in Beavercreek, Ohio, and was 1968 co-valedictorian of Beavercreek High School.[2] She earned a bachelor's degree in physics in 1972 from the University of Dayton, graduating summa cum laude,[3] and in the same year married Christopher Corcoran, taking his surname.[4] As a graduate student at Indiana University Bloomington, she began doing high-energy physics research at Fermilab.[1] Her 1977 doctoral dissertation, Measurement of the polarization parameter in proton-proton elastic scattering for beam momenta ranging from 20 GeV/c to 200 GeV/c, was supervised by Homer Neal.[5] She joined the Rice University faculty in 1980.[1]

She died while bicycling on February 3, 2017 in Houston, from a collision with a METRORail train.[1]

Contributions

As a professor at Rice, Corcoran continued her work at Fermilab as part of several large collaborative physics projects including the D0 experiment, KTeV collaboration, and muon-to-electron-conversion experiment.[6]

She also worked in physics outreach activities that included founding the Houston QuarkNet Program for high school physics students and teachers, helping to found a Women in Physics Group at Rice, sending undergraduates to physics conferences, and otherwise encouraging other women to participate in physics.[6]

Awards and honors

In 1992, the American Physical Society (APS) named her as a fellow "for contributions to experiments studying spin asymmetries in hadronic collision".[7] In 2015, the APS listed her as their January 2015 Woman of the Month.[6]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Glenn, Mike (February 3, 2017), "Beloved Rice scientist dies in bicycle-light rail accident", Houston Chronicle.
  2. ↑ "485 To Graduate From Beavercreek High Tuesday", Xenia Daily Gazette, May 27, 1968.
  3. ↑ "Marjorie D. Blasius Graduates from the University of Dayton", Press release, University of Dayton, May 8, 1972, retrieved 2017-02-04.
  4. ↑ "Marriage Applications", Xenia Daily Gazette, August 9, 1972.
  5. ↑ "Marjorie Diane Blasius Corcoran (1950 – )" (PDF), Notre Dame Physics Academic Genealogy, University of Notre Dame, Chemistry/Physics Library, March 2, 2012, retrieved 2017-02-04.
  6. 1 2 3 "January 2015 Woman of the Month: Marjorie Corcoran, Rice University", 2015 Women Physicist of the Month, American Physical Society, 2015, retrieved 2017-02-04.
  7. ↑ APS Fellow Archive, American Physical Society, retrieved 2017-02-04.
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