Sue Ann Bowling

Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1941, Sue Ann Bowling earned a bachelor's degree in physics at Radcliffe/Harvard University, and in 1963 moved to Fairbanks, Alaska to further her studies at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She was the first woman graduate student as well as the first woman to receive a doctorate degree at the Geophysical Institute. After a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, she returned to the Geophysical Institute and in 1970 joined the faculty as an assistant professor of geophysics. Her research and teaching focused on atmospheric science, meteorology, air pollution, and climate change, and she was the first director of the Institute's Alaska Climate Research Center. Sue Ann retired in 1998 in order to spend more time writing. In 2010, she published Homecoming, the first book in a science-fiction series. The second in the series, Tourist Trap, was published in 2012. In 2000, Sue Ann participated in the afternoon storytelling session at the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and shared some of her memories of working there in the early years. Sue Ann Bowling passed away in 2014.