Priscilla Frisch

Priscilla Diane Chapman Frisch (November 13, 1943 – April 2, 2025) was an American astronomer. She was a senior scientist in astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago. She worked with NASA on two unmanned mission to explore beyond the solar system.

Early life and education Frisch was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of Richard Courtney Chapman Jr. and Patricia Blasdel Chapman.

Career Frisch began working at the University of Chicago Laboratory of Space and Astronomy in 1974. "the wispy matter that lies between stars". She worked with NASA on the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) and on the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe. Science, Space Science Reviews, Journal of Geophysical Research, Advances in Space Research, and Astronomy & Astrophysics.

To study the magnetic-field orientation of the region of space surrounding the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, Priscilla compiled a program in 2005 that observed and recorded polarized-starlight measurements from those regions.

Frisch also contributed to multidisciplinary synthesis research on the larger galactic context of the heliosphere. Several of her papers such as “Morphology and Ionization of the Interstellar Cloud Surrounding the Solar System "The Ionization of Nearby Interstellar Gas" (2002, with Jonathan D. Slavin) "The chemical composition and gas-to-dust mass ratio of nearby interstellar matter" (2003, with Jonathan D. Slavin) "Heliospheric Response to Different Possible Interstellar Environments" (2006, with Hans-Reinhard Mueller, Vladimir Florinski, and Gary P. Zank) Solar Journey: The Significance of Our Galactic Environment for the Heliosphere and Earth (2006, editor) "The boundary conditions of the heliosphere: photoionization models constrained by interstellar and in situ data" (2008, with J. D. Slavin) "Whence the interstellar magnetic field shaping the heliosphere?" (2022, with 17 other authors)

Personal life Frisch was involved in various athletic activities, including hiking, climbing, and folk-dancing. When the male members of the Berkeley Hiking Club went on a hike without inviting the women, Frisch scaled the Berkeley Sather Tower, which rises 307 feet. With her sister assisting as a belayer, she secured a large red bow around the spire . In August of 1994, Frisch reunited with Berkeley Hiking Club members at the club’s reunion near Boulder, CO . She and other members from the 60s were photographed by Helen McGinnis, and Frisch is listed under photographs as Pris Chapman Frisch.

Chapman married physicist Henry J. Frisch; his parents David H. Frisch and Rose Frisch were both noted scientists. Frisch gave birth to her first daughter in 1974, the same year she was granted her own office in the UChicago Laboratory of Space and Astronomy building in the Enrico Fermi Institute. She had her second daughter in 1977. She died in 2025, at the age of 81, at her home in Hyde Park, Chicago. She is survived by her husband, two daughters, and three grandchildren.