Elizabeth Alexander

British geologist and physicist, Frances Elizabeth Somerville Alexander
Credit: Mary Harris

Frances Elizabeth Somerville Alexander neé Caldwell was born in December 1908 in Surrey, United Kingdom and was one of the first female scientists to work in the field of radio astronomy (the study of celestial objects that emit radio waves). Elizabeth spent her early life in India, where her father was the first Professor of Chemistry at Patna Science College and was later its Principal. She returned to England following the end of WWI and later entered Newnham College, Cambridge where she graduated with First Class Honours in geology in 1931. Elizabeth continued her education at Newnham College, earning her Ph.D. in 1934, with a thesis on the main outcrop of the Aymestry Limestone.

In July 1935, Elizabeth married Norman S. Alexander, a New Zealand physicist, and in 1936, they moved to Singapore where Norman accepted the Chair in Physics at Raffles College and Elizabeth began work on tropical weathering. In 1940 and 1941, Elizabeth worked at the Singapore Naval Base to aid the British Royal Navy on radio direction-finding. In early 1942, with WWII in full force, Elizabeth moved with her children to New Zealand, where she became the head of the Operations Research Section of the Radio Development Laboratory.

The office building where the Radio Development Laboratory was located.
Credit: Mary Harris

Elizabeth was particularly interested in researching propagational effects and developing theories that would help to predict radar performance from meteorological data and vice versa. As a result, she became a key player in a radio-meteorological project to investigate "anomalous propagation," radiation that looked as though it originated from over the horizon. This later evolved into the "Canterbury Project." Another anomalous propagation project that she researched was that of the "Norfolk Island Effect" which was described as increased radio interference at sunrise and sunset near Norfolk Island. Elizabeth discovered that this phenomenon was connected with radiation from the Sun - this was the beginning of the field of solar radio astronomy.

Elizabeth Alexander working on a set of calculations.
Credit: Mary Harris