J. Virginia Lincoln

Jeannette Virginia Lincoln (September 7, 1915 – August 1, 2003) was an American physicist.^[1]

The daughter of Rush B. Lincoln, a major general in the US Air Force, and Jeannette Bartholomew Lincoln, a chemistry professor, she was born in Ames, Iowa. She studied at Dana Hall in Wellesley, Massachusetts and went on to earn a bachelor's degree in physics from Wellesley College and a master's degree from Iowa State University.^[2] From 1935 to 1942, she was an instructor in household equipment at Iowa State. In 1942, she began work in the Interservice Radio Propagation Laboratory (later renamed the Central Radio Propagation Laboratory or CRPL) at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) in Washington, D.C.; she transferred to the NBS in Boulder, Colorado when the CRPL was moved there in 1954. In 1959, she became Chief of Radio Warning Services. In the same year, she was the only woman in the US delegation to the International Geophysical Year meeting in Moscow. In 1966, she became director for the World Data Center for Solar-Terrestrial Physics. She later became the Solar-Terrestrial Physics division chief for NOAA's National Geophysical and Solar-Terrestrial Data Center. She retired from federal service in 1980.^[1]

Lincoln developed a statistical method for predicting sunspots which is still in use. In 1973, she received the Department of Commerce Gold Medal for Distinguished Service.^[2] She was named to the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 2000.^[3]

Lincoln died in Boulder at the age of 87.^[2]

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