Margaret Smagorinsky

Margaret Smagorinsky
Born	Margaret F Knoepfel (1915-12-23)December 23, 1915 New York City
Died	November 14, 2011(2011-11-14) (aged 95) Hillsborough, NJ, United States
Alma mater	Brooklyn College University of Virginia New York University
Spouse	Joseph Smagorinsky
Scientific career
Fields	Meteorology
Institutions	Railroad Retirement Board Princeton University

Margaret Smagorinsky (23 December 1915 – 14 November 2011) was an American statistician, computer programmer, and pioneering weather technologist.[1] She was the first female statistician hired by the US Weather Bureau and the wife of meteorologist Joseph Smagorinsky.[2]

Early life

Smagorinsky was born in Brooklyn, New York as the second of four daughters of Anne and George Knoepfel. She attended Bay Ridge High School in Brooklyn.[3]

Smagorinsky loved learning from an early age and was the first member of her family to attend college when she attended Brooklyn College.[4] She graduated at age 19 with a degree in mathematics, and taught school in a one-room schoolhouse in Ashland, N.Y. for four years.[4]

Statistics career

Smagorinsky took the civil service exam for a statistical clerk in the US. She was offered a job at the Railroad Retirement Board in Washington, D.C., where she worked as a statistician processing paperwork for employees looking to enter the civil service.

At age 26, Smagorinsky joined the Weather Bureau,[4] where she was the first woman statistician.[5] In 1942, the Washington Post-Herald wrote about her as the first female professional statistician in the department.[4] After being sent to New York University for additional coursework,[6] she met Joseph Smagorinsky in a graduate statistics course. He was 8 years her junior, and they married on May 29, 1948.[3]

Smagorinsky had five children: Anne, Peter, Teresa, Julia, and Frederick, and left full-time government employment after her first child was born in 1951.^[citation needed]

Smagorinsky, in supporting her husband's work, processed data and programmed the ENIAC, Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer.[7] In April 1950, a group of meteorologists at New Jersey's Institute for Advanced Study successfully produced the first weather forecast using the ENIAC and numerical prediction techniques.[8][9] Smagorinsky is cited as a programmer of computers for 5-day weather forecast models created by the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.[7]

Publications

• The Regalia of Princeton University, Pomp, Circumstance, and Accoutrements of Academia.[1]
• The Tigers of Princeton University: A Campus Safari and Photo Essay (1992)[10]
• Some Legends and Lore of Princeton University: Historical Sketches (Little Books Series)[11]

References

1. Witman, Sarah (2017-06-16). "The Unheralded Contributions of Klara Dan von Neumann". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2023-03-05.
2. Lewis, John M. (2008). "SMAGORINSKY'S GFDL: Building the Team". Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 89 (9): 1339–1353. doi:10.1175/2008BAMS2599.1. ISSN 0003-0007. JSTOR 26220901. S2CID 122893031.
3. "Obituary of Margaret Smagorinsky | The Mather-Hodge Funeral Home". matherhodge.com. Retrieved 2023-03-05.
4. Kristine, Harper; Doel, Ronald (2006-01-02). "American Meteorological Society University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Tape Recorded Interview Project -- Interview of Margaret Smagorinsky". American Meteorological Society University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. Retrieved 2023-03-05.
5. "Weather Bureau's 1st girl statistician hails from Boro". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 1943-07-11. p. 7. Retrieved 2022-12-17.
6. New dictionary of scientific biography. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons/Thomson Gale. 2008. p. 470. ISBN 978-0-684-31320-7.
7. Smagorjnsky, Joseph (1983-01-01), Saltzman, Barry (ed.), "The Beginnings of Numerical Weather Prediction and General Circulation Modeling: Early Recollections", Advances in Geophysics, Theory of Climate, vol. 25, Elsevier, pp. 3–37, retrieved 2023-03-05
8. Nebeker, Frederik (1995-05-18). Calculating the Weather: Meteorology in the 20th Century. Elsevier. ISBN 978-0-08-052841-0.
9. Dyson, George (2012). Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe. Pantheon Books. p. 166. ISBN 978-0-375-42277-5.
10. Smagorinsky, Margaret; Einthoven, Wink (1992-01-01). The Tigers of Princeton University: A Campus Safari and Photo Essay. Office of Communications/Publications, Princeton University.
11. Smagorinsky, Margaret (1993-01-01). Some Legends and Lore of Princeton University: Historical Sketches. Office of Communications/Publications, Princeton University.