Friday, September 10, 2010

Physics Major to Congress

I'm always looking to see what else people do with Physics degrees.

Here's a physics undergraduate major:

According to the Arizona Daily Wildcat, a guidance, navigation and control engineer who works for Raytheon Missile Systems won the GOP primary in Arizona’s 7th congressional district in late August and now hopes to unseat U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a four-term Democrat, come November.

Ruth McClung, a self-described “rocket scientist”, earned a bachelor's degree in physics in 2004 from the University of Arizona in Tucson before going to work for Raytheon.

(I can't find the original article at The Arizona Wildcat.) She studied towards, but didn't finish, a master's degree in optical sciences.

So we see two careers here: Becoming a politician, and (more practically) working for the defense industry, missile defense in particular. (Actually, back in the 80s, my best friend's father always claimed SDI was a fake jobs program for physicists.)

The three -- an all-time record -- current PhD physicsts in Congress are Democrats Rush Holt and Bill Foster and retiring RepublicanVern Ehlers.

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