In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Dr. Lynnae Quick, Ocean Worlds Planetary Geophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Quick discusses the past year and the challenges associated with increasing diversity in the field, and she recounts her childhood in North Carolina. She describes her early interests in science and her undergraduate experience at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University and the value of attending an HBCU. Quick discusses her initial graduate work at Catholic University and a formative internship she spent working with Aki Roberge at Goddard on exoplanets and how she became interested in planetary geology and ultimately cyrovolcanism. Quick explains her decision to transfer to Johns Hopkins where there were more opportunities to study planetary science and to work with Bruce Marsh and Louise Prockter as a co-advisor. She discusses her thesis research on Europa, and she explains when it is possible to extrapolate findings on one exoplanet to others. Quick describes her postdoctoral research with Lori Glaze on cryovolcanism on Venus at Goddard and explains the relevance of this field to astrobiology. She describes her first staff scientist position at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum where she worked on the Europa Clipper mission and she describes the opportunity to join Goddard in a full time position, where she picked back up on the cryovolcanism research she had some as a postdoctoral researcher. Quick discusses her current work on extrasolar planets. At the end of the interview, Quick surveys the state of diversity and inclusivity in the field, and the work that remains to be done building on the efforts undertaken over the past year, and she conveys optimism that imaging geysers on Europa could yield evidence of life.
Head of Electronic Countermeasures Section of the U.S. Navy Department, Bureau of Ships, 1945-1948, with primary responsibilities in design of low noise receivers, surveillance of electromagnetic spectrum; cooperation with other offices (Radar, Vacuum Tube, Office of Naval Research). Retirement from Navy; professor at University of Maryland and graduate student in physics at Catholic University. His important contribution using quantum states of atoms and molecules (Ottawa conference, 1952); his thesis that employed microwave spectroscopy to solve a physical chemistry problem. Also prominently mentioned are: Hatton, Rudolf Kompfner, John Pierce, Emanuel Piore, Horbert J. Reich, Louis Smullin; Bell Telephone Laboratories, and Institute of Radio Engineers.
