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Eleanor Adair

Eleanor Campbell Reed was born on Nov. 28, 1926, in Arlington, Massachusetts. Her father had a Dodge dealership; prior to marriage her mother had worked as a fashion illustrator. Adair (then Reed) received a degree from Mount Holyoke College in 1948. Her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1955 is in physics and psychology. In 1952 she married Robert K. Adair, a physicist.  Having done her doctorate in sensory psychology, she conducted physiology studies in the 1970s as a fellow at the John B. Pierce Laboratory in New Haven to learn how humans and animals react to heat. This led her to study the controversial area of microwaves and the effect on microwaves on health. Experimenting on monkeys and volunteer people, she concluded that microwave radiation from microwave ovens, cells phones, and power lines is harmless to humans and animals.

In 1996 she took the position of senior scientist for electromagnetic radiation effects, at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas.   Her professional activities included being a Fellow of a number of scientific societies, secretary-treasurer of the Bioelectromagnetics Society, and chairing the IEEE Committee on Man and Radiation. She worked on standards in the area of radion, serving as vice chairman of the IEEE standards coordinating committee 28. as a member of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement (NCRP) Committee 89-5. She co-chaired the IEEE subcommittee that set the guidelines for human exposure to radio frequency fields.