Donald Alfred Gurnett (April 11, 1940 – January 13, 2022) was an American physicist and professor at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...

who specialized in plasma physics.

Early life and education

Gurnett grew up in

Fairfax, Iowa Fairfax is a city in Linn County, Iowa, United States. The population was 2,828 at the time of the 2020 census. It is part of the Cedar Rapids Metropolitan Statistical Area. History Fairfax was laid out in 1863 when the railroad was extended ...

. In his spare time he built and flew model airplanes with a club at the airport in Cedar Rapids. There he met the German expatriate scientist

Alexander Lippisch Alexander Martin Lippisch (November 2, 1894 – February 11, 1976) was a German aeronautical engineer, a pioneer of aerodynamics who made important contributions to the understanding of tailless aircraft, delta wings and the ground effect, and a ...

. Gurnett received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Iowa in 1962, and then his master's degree in physics in 1963 and his doctorate in 1965.

Career

Gurnett's research into space plasmas (and his involvement in the development of electronics and measuring devices for space missions) began while he was a student and eventually led to early studies of

plasma waves In plasma physics, waves in plasmas are an interconnected set of particles and fields which propagate in a periodically repeating fashion. A plasma is a quasineutral, electrically conductive fluid. In the simplest case, it is composed of electron ...

in the Earth's radiation belt (via low-frequency radio waves). From 1962, he was a

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

trainee at the University of Iowa and

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

(1964/65). He participated to the Injun satellites program designed and built by researchers at the

to observe various radiation and magnetic phenomena in the

ionosphere The ionosphere () is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere of Earth, from about to above sea level, a region that includes the thermosphere and parts of the mesosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. It plays an ...

and beyond. In 1965, he became an assistant professor, in 1968 an associate professor, and in 1972 a professor at the University of Iowa. His involvement with space plasmas continued through his involvement in 41 NASA missions, including

Voyager 1 ''Voyager 1'' is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. Launched 16 days after its twin ''Voyager 2'', ''Voya ...

and

Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...

to the outer planets, the

Galileo Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was ...

mission to

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but ...

, and the Cassini mission to

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...

. He was particularly concerned with the formation of the plasma waves observable in the radio spectrum in the plasmas of the radiation belts of planets with magnetic fields and wave-particle interactions in the plasmas, which are often easier to study in space than in the laboratory. In late August 2012, the radio and plasma-wave instrument designed by Gurnett onboard Voyager 1 confirmed that it had crossed the heliopause.

Personal life

He was married to his wife Marie. Together they had two daughters, Suzanne and Christina. Gurnett died on January 13, 2022, at the age of 81.

Awards and honors

In 1998, Gurnett became a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

. In 2004, he became a member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

. In 2014 he gave the Van Vleck Lecture and in 2006 the EGU Hannes Alfvén Medal. In addition, he received the Humboldt Prize, with which he was at the

Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics The Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics is a Max Planck Institute, located in Garching, near Munich, Germany. In 1991 the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics split up into the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Ph ...

in Garching (1975/76). In 1989 he received the John Adam Fleming Medal from the

American Geophysical Union The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, atmospheric, ocean, hydrologic, space, and planetary scientists and enthusiasts that according to their website includes 130,000 people (not members). AGU's act ...

and the Excellence in Plasma Physics Award from the

APS APS or Aps or aps or similar may refer to: Education * Abbottabad Public School * Adarsh Public School, a public school in New Delhi, India * Alamogordo Public Schools * Albuquerque Public Schools, New Mexico, US school district * Allendale Publ ...

and in 1978 the John Howard Dellinger Gold Medal from the

International Union of Radio Science The International Union of Radio Science (abbreviated ''URSI'', after its French name, french: link=no, Union radio-scientifique internationale) is one of 26 international scientific unions affiliated to the International Council for Science ( ...

. In 1979/80 he was a visiting professor at UCLA.

External links

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gurnett, Donald 1940 births 2022 deaths Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences University of Iowa faculty University of Iowa alumni People from Linn County, Iowa Scientists from Iowa 20th-century American physicists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences