Elizabeth Laird (physicist)

Elizabeth Rebecca Laird (December 6, 1874 – March 3, 1969) was a Canadian physicist who chaired the physics department at Mount Holyoke College for nearly four decades. She was the first woman accepted by Sir J. J. Thomson to conduct research at Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory. Laird graduated from the London Collegiate Institute in 1893, and attended University College of the University of Toronto after, due to her gender, she was denied an exhibition scholarship where she could have studied abroad. She earned her Ph.D. in physics and mathematics from Bryn Mawr College in 1901.
Asteroid (16192) Laird is named in her honour.
Biography.
Early life and education.
Elizabeth Laird was born on December 6, 1874, in Owen Sound, Ontario. Her mother was Rebecca Laird and her father was Reverend John Laird, a Methodist minister.
In 1893 Laird graduated from the London Collegiate Institute, and went on to earn her bachelor of arts degree in mathematics and physics from University College of the University of Toronto in 1896, where she received the University's Gold Medal. She taught for a year at Ontario Ladies' College. In 1898 she received a postgraduate fellowship in physics from Bryn Mawr College. She studied at the Humboldt University of Berlin from 1898 to 1899, working with Max Planck and under Emil Warburg on time lag in magnetization. During her time there, she became the first person to use a Nernst lamp for a physics project. Laird earned her Ph.D. in physics and mathematics from Bryn Mawr College in 1901 for her spectroscopy and magnetism work. Laird also studied at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University (Summer 1905 and Spring 1909) and the University of Chicago (Fall 1919). She received honorary degrees from the University of Toronto in 1927 and the University of Western Ontario in 1945.
Career.
Mount Holyoke College.
Laird was hired by Mount Holyoke College as an assistant in physics in 1901. She was promoted to instructor the following year and appointed head of the Physics Department in 1903. She was the first woman accepted by Sir J. J. Thomson to conduct research at Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory. She retired to emerita status in 1940.
Later career.
Laird came out of retirement during World War II to research radar at University of Western Ontario for the Canadian National Research Council. Her retirement home was in London, Ontario and she turned up at the research centre in 1940, asking to help. She worked there without pay but took a full part in the research, including the experiments in the unheated antenna building. Laird presented several top secret reports on her findings to the National Research Council, taught army and navy personnel, and took her turn monitoring the unheated observation station on the university's campus. In 1945, she was made an honorary professor of physics there and continued working upon the absorption of ultra-high frequency radiation by tissue. Her research studying the effects of microwave radiation on biological materials was supported by the Ontario Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation. By the time she retired for the second  time in 1953, she was not only one of Canada's most distinguished physicists, but also the oldest. Physicist A.D. Misener said that Laird was "the rare combination of a conscientious and productive research worker and an inspiring and able teacher."
Laird died on March 3, 1969 in London.
Honours and awards.
The Annual Laird Lecture, at the University of Western Ontario, was created in 1970 and "honours a remarkable person in Western’s history and was the first lecture series in the Faculty of Science to carry the name of an individual." Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador also holds The Elizabeth R. Laird Lecture, established by a bequest from Dr. Elizabeth Laird. 