7 Nov. 2006
Senior Physicist of IGY Era Dies

Alan H. Shapley

Alan Horace Shapley of Boulder, Colorado, died Friday October 20, 2006 following a brief illness at the Hospice Care Center in Louisville (near Boulder). He was 87.

The son of astronomer Harlow Shapley and Martha Betz Shapley, he attended Harvard College, graduating in 1940. He worked at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (Carnegie Institution of Washington) early in his career, making ionospheric predictions in collaboration with J. Virginia Lincoln at U.S. Department of Commerce National Bureau of Standards (NBS, now National Institute for Science and Technology). He then worked for the NBS Central Radio Propagation Laboratory (CRPL) serving as Chief, Sun-Earth Relationships Section and then NOAA during the period 1947-1981. Shapley served as Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Geophysical and Solar-Terrestrial Data Center (NGSDC, now NGDC) 1970-1981. He served on the committee that chose Boulder, Colorado as a new distributed site for NBS, part of the post WWII effort to distribute government facilities away from Washington, DC. He was very active over the years with the Federation of Atomic Scientists, beginning in 1945 following the use of atomic bombs in Japan to end WWII.

Shapley served as Vice-Chairman of the U.S. Committee for the International Geophysical Year (IGY, 1957-58) - a remarkably successful, cooperatively developed, worldwide program of research and corresponding protocols for international sharing of research data on solar and geophysical events. He was a very active member of the international Special Committee for the IGY (known as CSAGI - its acronym for the title in French) as coordinator for the World Days Program. During the IGY he developed the World Days and the International Geophysical Calendar, and helped develop the Regional Warning Centers and the World Data Center system. After IGY, he was founding director of the NGDC (which included several branches of the World Data Center-"A") in Boulder, Colorado.

During and after IGY, Shapley traveled extensively to promote cooperation in scientific research, especially in ionospheric physics, solar activity, Antarctica, earth satellite programs and international data exchange. He took multiple trips to the USSR and various Soviet block countries, Japan, Australia and throughout Western Europe. He traveled to Antarctica twice, in 1959 and again in 1969, and was instrumental in the establishment of research facilities on that continent. In 1980 he was an invited guest of the Chinese government, presenting several lectures around China on scientific topics. In 1985 he received the USSR Academy of Sciences' Geophysical Committee Commemorative medal for international cooperation in geophysics.

Shapley was very active in post-IGY international programs of the International Union of Scientific Radio, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, International Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics and other international bodies. He gave special attention in the last few years to four international programs scheduled to take place approximately 50 years after the IGY: Heliophysical Year (IHY), Polar Year, Year of Planet Earth and Electronic Geophysical Year. He was the first recipient of the IHY's "IGY Gold Award". Shapley was a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, served on the Board of Governors of the American Polar Society, and was a member of the American Astronomical Society, the International Astronomical Union and many other national and international scientific organizations. His papers from his extensive activities are housed at the U.S. Library of Congress.

Shapley's roles in bringing NBS to Boulder, executing the IGY, and promoting Boulder as a top location for science and scientific research have been recognized in the recent celebration of the 50th anniversary of the dedication of the Boulder Labs, and the upcoming 50th anniversary of the IGY. He was President of the Colorado Music Festival from 1979 to 1982, and served on the Board of the CMF Endowment Fund and was a founding member of the CMF Legacy Club. He was a founding member of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Boulder, and a long time member of the Boulder chapter of the ACLU.

He married Kathryn (Kay) E. Maloney in 1956. Survivors include his daughter Carol Shapley Etter; a sister, Mildred Shapley Matthews; two brothers, Lloyd and Carl Shapley; two grandchildren and one great-grandchild. He was preceded in death by his wife, Kay. Contributions may be made in his name to the Colorado Music Festival Endowment, 900 Baseline Road, Cottage 100, Boulder, CO 80303 U.S.A. A memorial service will be scheduled at a later date. Condolences may be sent to Carol Etter at AHS2006@bellsouth.net.