Jacqueline Davidson

Jacqueline Davidson received her B.Sc. at the University of Western Australia and her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Chicago.  After her PhD., she was awarded a USA National Research Council Fellowship to carry out research at NASA Ames Research Center in California. Her main area of research was star formation and galaxy evolution, in particular in how magnetic fields regulate the star and galactic cloud formation processes. A key part of her research was carried out on the NASA Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO) using science instruments she helped design and build.  In the early 1990’s, Dr. Davidson joined the NASA Project Office to develop, with the German Space Agency (DLR), a larger concept of the KAO, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). In 1997, Universities Space Research Association (USRA) won the NASA contract to develop SOFIA; Dr. Davidson became the USRA SOFIA Project Scientist, and as such was the scientist tasked to translate the scientific capability requirements of SOFIA to engineering requirements. SOFIA is currently flying and taking data out of the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center in California.   In 2007, Dr. Davidson returned to Australia to work with the Gravitational Wave Group in the then School of Physics at UWA, and since 2008 she has been teaching a number of undergraduate courses at UWA, in particular Electrodynamics and Relativity.