Marjorie Corcoran

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. 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. "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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