Gordon Newkirk’s Contributions to Coronal Studies

Abstract

Gordon Allen Newkirk, Jr. was born in West Orange, New Jersey June 12, 1928 and died in Boulder, Colorado December 21, 1985 at age 57. He was graduated from Harvard University in 1950 and in 1953 earned a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Michigan. In 1955, after service in the Signal Corps of the U.S. Army he took a position at the High Altitude Observatory in 3oulder where he worked the remaining thirty years of his life. For 11 of those years (1968-1979) he was director of the observatory and associate director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He was also active as a teacher and from 1965 through 1985 was an adjoint professor at the University of Colorado. From 1972 through 1975 he served as Chairman of the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society and from 1976 through 1979 as President of Commission 10 (Solar Activity) of the International Astronomical Union.