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. In her later life she studied electromagnetic radiation for military and medical applications.
Asteroid (16192) Laird is named in her honour.
Contents
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 study at the University College of the University of Toronto after she was denied an exhibition scholarship due to her gender that would have allowed her to study abroad. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics and physics in 1896 and received the university's gold medal. Although she wanted to immediately begin graduate study at the University of Toronto, her scholarship applications were denied because of her gender. Instead, after graduation she taught for a year at Ontario Ladies' College before receiving a postgraduate fellowship in physics from Bryn Mawr College in 1898. 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.