France A. Cordova

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France A. Córdova on her induction as Director of the National Science Foundation (2014)

France Anne-Dominic Córdova (born August 5, 1947 in Paris ) is an American astrophysicist , former university president and director of the National Science Foundation .

Life

Córdova was born in Paris, the eldest daughter of an Irish mother and a Mexican-American graduate of the United States Military Academy . She first studied English at Stanford University with a bachelor's degree in 1969 and took part in anthropological research on the Zapotecs in Mexico . She then studied physics and received her doctorate ( Ph.D. ) from the California Institute of Technology in 1979 . From 1979 to 1989 she worked in the Space Astronomy and Astrophysics Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory . She then headed the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University from 1989 to 1993 . From 1993 to 1996, she was the first woman chief scientist at NASA . In 1996 she moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara , where she became Vice Chancellor for Research and held a chair in physics. She then was Chancellor and Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Riverside from 2002 to 2007 . From July 2007 to 2012 she was the first woman president of Purdue University , where she succeeded Martin C. Jischke . From 2009 she was a member of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution , and in 2012 she took over the management of the board until 2014.

At the suggestion of US President Barack Obama , she was confirmed by the US Senate as 14th director of the National Science Foundation. She took up this position on March 31, 2014.

Córdova published more than 150 scientific papers in the field of observational and experimental astrophysics, especially for research on X-ray and gamma-ray sources. She also published numerous articles on research policy topics.

In 2006 she became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and in 2008 of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 2017 she was elected an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy . She is also a Fellow of the Association for Women in Science and an honorary doctorate from several universities and colleges (including Ben Gurion University of the Negev , Purdue University, Duke University , University of Connecticut , Rochester Institute of Technology ). For 2020, Córdova was awarded the Leo Szilard Lectureship Award from the American Physical Society .

Fonts (selection)

  • France A. Córdova, Keith O. Mason: High-velocity winds from a dwarf nova during outburst . In: Astrophysical Journal . tape 260 , 1982, pp. 716-721 .
  • FA Córdova, RM Hjellming, KO Mason: A radio survey of cataclysmic variable stars using the Very Large Array . In: Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific . tape 95 , no. 563 , 1983, pp. 69-71 , doi : 10.1086 / 131119 .
  • Dirk Pandel, France A. Córdova, Keith O. Mason, William C. Priedhorsky: X-ray observations of the boundary layer in dwarf novae at low accretion rates . In: Astrophysical Journal . tape 626 , 2005, p. 396-410 .

Web links

Commons : France Cordova  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present, Chapter C. (PDF; 1.3 MB) In: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org). Retrieved June 11, 2019 .
  2. ^ Members: France Anne Córdova. Royal Irish Academy, accessed June 11, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Córdova, France A.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Córdova, France Anne-Dominic (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astrophysicist and director of the National Science Foundation
DATE OF BIRTH August 5, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris