Patricia Reiff

Patricia Reiff (born 1950) is an American space physicist at Rice University, known for her research on space weather and for engaging the public about science.

She started taking classes in astronomy and obtained her B.S. in physics from Oklahoma State University (1971).

Reiff started graduate school at Rice University in 1971 and immediately learned the computer programming needed to work on data from the Charged Particle Lunar Environment Experiment (CPLEE).

She moved to Rice University where she earned an M.S. space science in 1974 working on Magnetosheath electrons.

In 1975 she finished her Ph.D. in space and astronomy working on Apollo plasma data.

From 1975 to 1976, she worked on Atmosphere Explorer data as a National Research Council fellow at Marshall Space Flight Center.

As of 2021, she is a professor in physics and astronomy at Rice University.

"What I like most about my job is the fact that when you discover or figure something out, for that time you are the ONLY one in the world who knows that!"

Reiff served as the editor of solar-planetary news in EOS, the journal of the American Geophysical Union, from 1986 to 1989.

From 1993 until 1998, Reiff served on the NASA Space Science Advisory Committee, and in this role influenced the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) of the importance of including education and public outreach within science missions.

In subsequent years, she worked on the education and outreach teams for multiple missions, including Imager for Magnetopause to Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) mission and the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS).

Reiff established multiple programs to engage the public in science, including a program on a master of science teaching degree.

She develops software that is disseminated to public education groups and these programs have been seen by over a million visitors at 15 museums, and she is particularly focused on people in under-served communities in the American southwest.

At the Houston Museum of Science, she worked with Carolyn Sumners on digital shows within planetariums, educational experiences that were ultimately spun off into two commercial ventures.

Reiff also engages the public with real-time space weather alerts that provided predictions about aurora viewing.

Reiff is a ham radio operator with the call sign W5TAR and has written guidelines to use ham radio to train teachers.

Reiff sponsored the United States' first team to the International Astronomy Olympiad.

In 2000, Reiff was the founding director of the Rice Space Institute.

Reiff's research is on magnetospheric physics where she works on the aurora and how the solar wind changes Earth's environment.

She used high- and low-altitude spacecraft data to show that auroras are caused by the alignment between an electric field and a magnetic field.

Reiff is a self-described child of the space age and in a 2019 interview she recalls the excitement of watching Sputnik flying overhead, listening to John Kennedy's speech about going to the Moon, and watching the Apollo 11 liftoff en route to the Moon.

As a child, Reiff loved the outdoors and medicine and initially considered vet medicine as a career option.

The movies produced in the Bell System Science Series incited her interest in science, especially The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays and Hemo the magnificent.

Her interest in space science began with a father-daughter course at the Oklahoma City Planetarium while she was a Brownie.

In college, she started as a math major and did a summer research experience at Argonne National Laboratory.

In 2019 she described the process of analyzing data that arrived on 7-track tape reels and then, starting with Apollo 15, being able to watch data arriving in real-time.

In the years following her Ph.D., Reiff worked on data from multiple missions including the Dynamics Explorer, Polar, IMAGE, and Cluster Missions.