Dr. Margaret "Peggy" Shea '58 '61, the first woman to earn an advanced degree in physics from UNH and a pioneer of her time, will join her husband Don D. Smart D.Sc., for a seminar talk with UNH students. Those interested in science and history are encouraged to attend.
Snacks will be provided.
Margaret "Peggy" Ann Shea '58, '61G
Matriculating to UNH in 1954, 17-year-old Margaret “Peggy” Ann Shea ’58, ‘61G was one of only three female students signed up for what was then known as the College of Technology. She earned her undergraduate degree in physics and went on to become the first woman to earn an advanced degree from UNH in the subject in 1961. Cementing her role as a path-breaker, in 2001 she earned her doctorate in physics from the University of Tasmania, Australia, at the age of 64.
Shea began her research career as an undergraduate, monitoring cosmic rays on Mt. Washington and in Durham. After brief stints at the University of Hawaii and AVCO Corporation, she joined the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories at Massachusetts’ Hanscom Air Force Base, where she forged a 50-year career researching the interplay between cosmic rays, solar particles and the Earth’s magnetic field.
She authored or co-authored more than 400 scientific papers, edited the journal Advances in Space Research and won numerous awards, including the American Geophysical Union’s Waldo E. Smith medal for extraordinary service to geophysics, the Soviet Union Academy of Science’s commemorative medal honoring 100 years of international geophysics, and the COSPAR Distinguished Service Medal. She was selected as a foreign associate of the Royal Astronomical Society and is an Academician of the International Academy of Astronautics. Among her scientific achievements, she developed the geomagnetic cutoff rigidity tables that are the international standard used by NASA and the FAA to determine radiation exposure of astronauts and airline crews in flight.
At the time just the second woman to earn a senior medal from the AGU, Shea was hailed by her colleagues as “a human dynamo, a great colleague and a smart lady.” She worked with her husband, Dr. Don Smart, almost her entire career.