Marjorie Diane Blasius Corcoran (1950 – February 3, 2017) was an American particle physicist who worked as a professor at

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a private research university in Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranked among the top universities ...

Biography

Born as Marjorie Blasius, she grew up in

Beavercreek, Ohio Beavercreek is the largest city in Greene County, Ohio, United States, and is the second-largest suburb of Dayton. The population was 46,549 at the 2020 census. It is part of Metro Dayton. The Beavercreek area was settled in the early 1800s. A ...

, and was 1968 co-valedictorian of

Beavercreek High School Beavercreek High School is the public high school in Beavercreek, Ohio. A member of the Beavercreek City School District, the high school has an enrollment of more than 2,300 students. The high school campus consists of Ferguson Hall, a free-stan ...

. She earned a bachelor's degree in physics in 1972 from the

University of Dayton The University of Dayton (UD) is a private, Catholic research university in Dayton, Ohio. Founded in 1850 by the Society of Mary, it is one of three Marianist universities in the nation and the second-largest private university in Ohio. The univ ...

, graduating ''summa cum laude'', and in the same year married Christopher Corcoran, taking his surname. As a graduate student at

Indiana University Bloomington Indiana University Bloomington (IU Bloomington, Indiana University, IU, or simply Indiana) is a public research university in Bloomington, Indiana. It is the flagship campus of Indiana University and, with over 40,000 students, its largest ca ...

, she began doing high-energy physics research at

Fermilab Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics. Since 2007, Fermilab has been opera ...

. Her 1977 doctoral dissertation, ''Measurement of the polarization parameter in proton-proton elastic scattering for beam momenta ranging from 20 GeV/c to 200 GeV/c'', was supervised by Homer Neal. She joined the Rice University faculty in 1980. She died while bicycling on February 3, 2017 in

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

, from a collision with a

METRORail METRORail is the light rail system in Houston, Texas (United States). In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of . METRORail ranks as the second most-traveled light rail system in the Southern United States and the 12th ...

train.

Contributions

As a professor at Rice, Corcoran continued her work at Fermilab as part of several large collaborative physics projects including the

D0 experiment D, or d, is the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''dee'' (pronounced ), plural ''dees''. History The ...

, KTeV collaboration, and muon-to-electron-conversion experiment. She also worked in physics outreach activities that included founding the Houston QuarkNet Program for high school physics students and teachers, helping to found a Women in Physics Group at Rice, sending undergraduates to physics conferences, and otherwise encouraging other women to participate in physics.

Awards and honors

In 1992, the American Physical Society (APS) named her as a

fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

"for contributions to experiments studying spin asymmetries in hadronic collision".. In 2015, the APS listed her as their January 2015 Woman of the Month..

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Corcoran, Marjorie 1950 births 2017 deaths People from Beavercreek, Ohio American physicists American women physicists Particle physicists University of Dayton alumni Indiana University Bloomington alumni Rice University faculty Railway accident deaths in the United States Fellows of the American Physical Society American women academics 21st-century American women Physicists from Ohio Road incident deaths in Texas Cycling road incident deaths