Eleanor Reed Adair (November 11, 1926 – April 20, 2013) was an American physiologist who studied the effects of electromagnetic radiation on humans. She is best known for performing the first human studies demonstrating the safety of

microwave radiation Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter to one millimeter corresponding to frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz respectively. Different sources define different frequency rang ...

Personal life

Adair was born on November 28, 1926, in

Arlington, Massachusetts Arlington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. The town is six miles (10 km) northwest of Boston, and its population was 46,308 at the 2020 census. History European colonists settled the Town of Arlington in 1635 as a village w ...

. She received her undergraduate degree from Mount Holyoke College in 1948. She married Robert K. Adair, a physicist, in 1952. In 1955, she obtained her doctorate from the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin. Founded when Wisconsin achieved statehood in 1848, UW–Madison ...

. She received her Ph.D. in a combination of two fields: sensory psychology and physics.

Scientific work

Starting in the 1970s, Adair conducted physiology studies as a fellow at the John B. Pierce Laboratory in New Haven, Connecticut to learn how humans and animals react to heat. This work led her to focus on the controversial area of

microwave Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter to one millimeter corresponding to frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz respectively. Different sources define different frequency ra ...

s and their effect on human health. Experimenting first on

squirrel monkey Squirrel monkeys are New World monkeys of the genus ''Saimiri''. ''Saimiri'' is the only genus in the subfamily Saimirinae. The name of the genus is of Tupi origin (''sai-mirím'' or ''çai-mbirín'', with ''sai'' meaning 'monkey' and ''mirím'' ...

s and then on human volunteers, she concluded that microwave radiation from microwave ovens, cells phones, and power lines is harmless to humans and animals. In 1996, she joined the U.S.

Air Force Research Laboratory The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is a scientific research organization operated by the United States Air Force Materiel Command dedicated to leading the discovery, development, and integration of aerospace warfighting technologies, pl ...

at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas, as a senior scientist studying electromagnetic radiation effects.

Awards and honors

Adair was a fellow of several scientific societies, including the Bioelectromagnetics Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). She served as the secretary-treasurer of the former. Adair chaired several IEEE committees, including the Committee on Man and Radiation and the Standards Coordinating Committee. She was a member of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement Committee. In 2007 she was awarded the D'Arsonval Award for Bioelectromagnetics by the Bioelectromagnetics Society.Greenbaum, Ben. ''Eleanor R. Adair: 2007 D'Arsonval Award recipient.'' BioElectroMagnetics, Volume 29, Issue 8, page 585, December 200

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Death

Adair passed away in 2013 due to complications from a stroke.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Adair, Eleanor 1926 births 2013 deaths People from Arlington, Massachusetts Mount Holyoke College alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni 20th-century American women scientists 20th-century American scientists American physiologists Women physiologists 21st-century American women