Gail H. Marcus is an American nuclear engineer and expert on nuclear power plants, the first American woman with a doctorate in nuclear engineering.[1] She is a past president of the American Nuclear Society, and the author of the book Nuclear Firsts: Milestones on the Road to Nuclear Power.[2]
Education and career
editMarcus grew up in a Jewish family in an Italian neighborhood of Long Branch, New Jersey, the oldest of three children.[3] Her mother was a schoolteacher and her father was an electrical engineer,[4] both first-generation Americans. She was her public high school's valedictorian. Her father encouraged her to go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT),[3] where she earned bachelor's and master's degrees in physics in 1968. She completed a doctorate (Sc.D.) in nuclear engineering at MIT in 1971, becoming the first American woman to earn a nuclear engineering doctorate.[1]
While still in her doctoral program, Marcus worked on the effects of atomic bomb blasts on military electronic equipment, for the United States Army in Fort Monmouth.[4] After completing her doctorate and working as a defense contractor for eight years, she joined the Congressional Research Service,[1] where from 1980 to 1985 she was Assistant Chief of the Science Policy Research Division.[2] In 1985 she moved to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Her work there included two long visits to Japan, working there on the advanced boiling water reactor and then from 1998 to 1999 visiting the Tokyo Institute of Technology.[1][5]
From 1999 to 2004, she worked at the United States Department of Energy, as Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology. During this time, she was also president of the American Nuclear Society from 2001 to 2002. From 2004 to 2007 she worked in Paris for the OECD, where she was Deputy Director-General of the Nuclear Energy Agency.[1][2][5] She continues to work as a consultant for the nuclear power industry.[2]
Book
editMarcus is the author of Nuclear Firsts: Milestones on the Road to Nuclear Power, published in 2010 by the American Nuclear Society.[6]
Recognition
editMarcus was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1992.[7] She chaired the AAAS Engineering Section from 2007 to 2008, and is also a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society.[2]
She was the 2013 recipient of the Engineer–Historian Award of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, "for the books and series of articles she wrote or edited concerning the history of the nuclear power technology, notably Nuclear Firsts: Milestones on the Road to Nuclear Power Development".[8] In 2014 she became the inaugural recipient of the E. Gail de Planque Medal of the American Nuclear Society.[2]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e A conversation with alumna Gail H. Marcus '68, SM '68, ScD '71, MIT Nuclear Science and Engineering, 2018, retrieved 2024-09-30
- ^ a b c d e f "Gail H. Marcus", Presidents, American Nuclear Society, retrieved 2024-09-30
- ^ a b Kline, Madeleine (2018), "Gail H. Marcus (interviewed by Madeleine Kline)", Margaret MacVicar Memorial AMITA (Association of MIT Alumnae) Oral History Project, Association of MIT Alumnae, hdl:1721.3/186182 – via Dome at the MIT Libraries
- ^ a b "Marcus: Continuing the Legacy" (PDF), Nuclear News, American Nuclear Society, pp. 30–36, July 2001
- ^ a b Dr. Gail Marcus Appointed New Deputy Director-General of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), NEA, 5 April 2004, retrieved 2024-09-30
- ^ Miller, Mark L. (December 2011), "Review of Nuclear Firsts", Health Physics, 101 (6): 759, doi:10.1097/hp.0b013e318212baaf
- ^ Historic fellows, American Association for the Advancement of Science, retrieved 2024-09-30
- ^ Engineer–Historian Award recipients, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, retrieved 2024-09-30
External links
edit- Gail Marcus publications indexed by Google Scholar