Eleanor Reed Adair (November 11, 1926 – April 20, 2013)
was an American
physiologist
Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...
who studied the effects of
electromagnetic radiation on humans. She is best known for performing the first human studies demonstrating the safety of
microwave radiation
Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter to one millimeter corresponding to frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz respectively. Different sources define different frequency rang ...
.
Personal life
Adair was born on November 28, 1926, in
Arlington, Massachusetts
Arlington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. The town is six miles (10 km) northwest of Boston, and its population was 46,308 at the 2020 census.
History
European colonists settled the Town of Arlington in 1635 as a village ...
. She received her undergraduate degree from
Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United State ...
in 1948. She married
Robert K. Adair, a physicist, in 1952. In 1955, she obtained her doctorate from the
University of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin. Founded when Wisconsin achieved statehood in 1848, UW–Madison ...
. She received her Ph.D. in a combination of two fields: sensory psychology and physics.
Scientific work
Starting in the 1970s, Adair conducted physiology studies as a fellow at the
John B. Pierce Laboratory in New Haven, Connecticut to learn how humans and animals react to heat. This work led her to focus on the controversial area of
microwave
Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter to one millimeter corresponding to frequency, frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz respectively. Different sources define differ