RELEASE NO: 99-009

Dr. Joanne Simpson, Chief Scientist for Meteorology at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., has been selected as one of the Top Ten Female Role Models of the Year by the Ms. Foundation for Women. Simpson shares this honor with First Lady Hilary Rodham Clinton, and astronaut Lieutenant Colonel Eileen Collins. Other inspirational female figures on the list include athletes, entertainers, and activists.

Simpson is honored for her determination and ability to overcome obstacles and reach her goal by becoming the first woman meteorologist in the world. She struggled to "earn her masters degree in 1945 at a time when women were being encouraged to leave their wartime jobs" and return home to care for their families. When she expressed her desire to earn her doctorate degree, she was told that it was "totally inappropriate for a woman to be a meteorologist." Simpson persevered and obtained her doctorate degree in 1949. She has devoted her entire professional career to studying clouds and violent storms and has received many honors for her accomplishments from the scientific community.

"I am very honored and pleased to be regarded as a role model for

professional women," stated Simpson. "Being honored by this fine organization is particularly gratifying because of the important programs they have started, such as ‘Take your Daughter to Work Day’ and other efforts to encourage women to equip themselves with the necessary skills to do exciting work."

Simpson has also recently been invited to submit her lifelong journals, personal letters and memoirs to the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Radcliffe College. Her meticulous notebooks comprise records of her

observations of weather from boats, airplanes, radar screens and satellite images and her analysis of what she has observed. The library is a national resource, which began by documenting heroic women of the suffrage movement. Today, it includes more than 2,000 manuscripts of such notable women as Susan B. Anthony and Amelia Earhart.

She served as study scientist for the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission from 1986-1991, and the mission project scientist from 1991 until after the launch of the spacecraft in 1997. She became chief scientist for Meteorology in 1988 and a Goddard Senior Fellow in 1989. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi, and was made a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society in 1968 and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 1994.

She has held numerous positions within the American Meteorological Society, including two terms as Councilor in the 1970's, Commissioner of Scientific and Technological Activities, 1981-1987, President in 1989, and Publications Commissioner, 1992 to present.

Among the awards that Simpson has received are the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1954, the American Meteorological Society Meisinger Award in 1962, the Rossby Research Medal in 1983, and the C.F. Brooks Award in 1992. She also received the Department of Commerce Gold Medal in 1972, the Professional Achievement Award of the University of Chicago Alumni in 1975 and 1992, and the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Award in 1982. She received the Women in Science and Engineering Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990. Simpson also was awarded the first William Nordberg Memorial Award for Earth Science in 1994. Simpson also received NASA’s 1998 Outstanding Leadership Medal for her exceptional leadership in the atmospheric sciences culminating in the successful launching and performance of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite.

Simpson was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1988. She has been listed in Who's Who of American Women since 1972 and in Who's Who in America since 1980.

The scientist, a resident of Washington, D.C., was born in Boston in 1923 and spent her childhood in Cambridge, Mass. and Cape Cod. Simpson received her Ph.D. in meteorology at the University of Chicago in 1949. She met her husband, Dr. Robert H. Simpson, when she was a consultant for his National Hurricane Research Project. They have been married 34 years and have had many adventures with their combined families of five children and six grandchildren.