Patricia Reiff

Patricia Reiff (born 1950) is an American space physicist at Rice University, known for her research on space weather and for engaging the public about science.

Early life and education Reiff is a self-described child of the space age and in a 2019 interview she recalls the excitement of watching Sputnik flying overhead, listening to John Kennedy's speech about going to the Moon, and watching the Apollo 11 liftoff en route to the Moon.

As a child, Reiff loved the outdoors and medicine and initially considered vet medicine as a career option. The movies produced in the Bell System Science Series incited her interest in science, especially The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays and Hemo the magnificent. Her interest in space science began with a father-daughter course at the Oklahoma City Planetarium while she was a Brownie. In college, she started as a math major and did a summer research experience at Argonne National Laboratory. In 1975 she finished her Ph.D. in space and astronomy working on Apollo plasma data. From 1975 to 1976, she worked on Atmosphere Explorer data as a National Research Council fellow at Marshall Space Flight Center. As of 2021, she is a professor in physics and astronomy at Rice University.

Career Reiff started graduate school at Rice University in 1971 and immediately learned the computer programming needed to work on data from the Charged Particle Lunar Environment Experiment (CPLEE).

Reiff established multiple programs to engage the public in science, including a program on a master of science teaching degree. Reiff is a ham radio operator with the call sign W5TAR and has written guidelines to use ham radio to train teachers. Reiff sponsored the United States' first team to the International Astronomy Olympiad.

Reiff served as the editor of solar-planetary news in EOS, the journal of the American Geophysical Union, from 1986 to 1989. In 2000, Reiff was the founding director of the Rice Space Institute. thumb Patricia Reiff (far right) with chairs of the Space Physics and Astronomy Department at Rice University. From left: Alexander J. Dessler, Barry Dunning, Umbelina Cantú (Department Administrator), Ronald F. Stebbings, F. Curtis Michel, Jon Weisheit, Patricia Reiff.

Research Reiff's research is on magnetospheric physics where she works on the aurora and how the solar wind changes Earth's environment. She used high- and low-altitude spacecraft data to show that auroras are caused by the alignment between an electric field and a magnetic field.

Selected publications

Awards and honors Women on the Move, Texas Executive Women (1990) Fellow, American Geophysical Union (1997) Aerospace Educator Award, Women in Aerospace (1999) NASA Group Achievement Awards: GGS Mission (1998) IMAGE Mission (2002) Athelstan Spilhaus Award, American Geophysical Union (2009) Birkeland Distinguished Speaker, University of Oslo (2012) "Order of the Round Table" (NWC Hall of Fame) (2021) "Distinguished Alumnus" (Oklahoma State U, CAS) (2022) "Excellence in Outreach" (Wiess School of Natural Science, Rice) (2023)