Prof. Patricia Reiff has been involved in space plasma physics research for more than fifty years, with interests in magnetospheric convection, the aurora, and solar wind control of the magnetosphere and ionosphere. She received her Ph.D. analyzing Apollo plasma data. She was a Co-I on the Dynamics Explorer, Polar, IMAGE, and Cluster Missions. She is a Co-I and EPO lead for the MMS (Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission. She has served as Director for NSF and NASA public education projects for over 35 years. Her "Space Update" software has been used by over a million visitors at over 15 museums, and together with "Earth Update" and "Space Weather" has been distributed to over 400,000 educators and learners. Her project "Immersive Earth", in cooperation with the Houston Museum of Natural Science, created full-dome digital planetarium shows teaching Earth science, and has created a portable planetarium system “Discovery Dome” to teach Earth and Space Science through immersive digital theater, which is now in over 450 sites in 45 countries and 45 states (www.tinyurl.com/discdome). These projects have spun off two companies, Space Update, Inc. (www.spaceupdate.com) and MTPE, dba "EPlanetarium" (www.eplanetarium.com) to distribute the materials and portable planetarium systems. She has over 160 refereed publications, (H index 40) and has served as Editor or Associate Editor for EOS, Journal of Geophysical Research, Reviews of Geophysics.
WEBSITE(S)| Rice Space Institute | Space Science Outreach
Research Areas
Space Plasma Physics: Magnetospheric Physics, Aurorae, Solar Wind/Magnetosphere/Ionosphere Interactions; Space Weather
Industry Impact & Relevance
She has served on advisory committees for the National Science Foundation, NASA, the National Academy of Science, the AAU, Goddard Space Flight Center, UCAR, and Los Alamos, and on the NASA E/PO MOWG. She has served as Chair of the Council of Institutions of the Universities Space Research Association and the SPA Public Education Commit¬tee for the AGU. She is a member of Sigma PI Sigma, Pi Kappa Pi and Sigma Xi and has numerous awards, including being named as one of Houston's "Women on the Move" in 1990. She received the inaugural "Marjorie Corcoran" Award from Rice and the inaugural "STEM Influencer Award" from the Women's Energy Network, both in April 2018. She was elected as a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 1997, and received the “Athelstan Spilhaus Award” for public education in 2009 and the "SPARC" Award in 2013. She was named the "Birkeland Distinguished Speaker" by the University of Oslo in 2012. She received the "Aerospace Educator Award" from Women in Aerospace in 1999 and the Service Award from NARS in 2004. She received the “Excellence in Outreach” Award from the Wiess School of Natural Science in 2023, a “Distinguished Alumna” award from the OSU College of Arts and Sciences in 2022, and the “Order of the Round Table” award from Northwest Classen in 2021. She received NASA "Group Achievement" awards for the IMAGE, GGS and Cluster missions, and was an organizer for the World Space Congress in 2002. She has received Certificates of Appreciation for her EPO efforts from NASA and the Sloan Foundation and is listed in American Men and Women of Science and Who's Who. In addition to training fourteen PhD's, she created and directs the "Master of Science Teaching" degree program, with 36 teacher alumni as of 2024. She frequently appears as a science commentator on local and national television, print, web and radio, and leads solar eclipse tours (www.eclipsetours.com).
Education
1971 BS Physics, Oklahoma State University
1974 MS Space Science, Rice University
1975 PhD Space Physics and Astronomy, Rice University