Materials are arranged in the order created during the interview process with the first file containing administrative materials created before, during, and after the interview.
Accession No. PA.2002.0027: Donald L. Carpenter, 2002 September
[identification of item], Donald L. Carpenter Oral History, SPEC.PA.56.0129, Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center Archival Program, Ohio State University
Contains audiocassettes.
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Processed by: Audrey Wimbiscus, 2023 November; Finding aid written by: David Mezick, December 2023
Donald Leland Carpenter (1928-2019) was an electrical engineer who studied the properties of the upper atmosphere. He was born in Spokane, Washington. Carpenter served as an electronics technician in the United States Navy from 1946 to 1948. He earned a Bachelor's degree in 1951 from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, where he studied political science and philosophy. Carpenter then earned a Master's degree in Public Law and Government from Columbia University in 1954.
Unable to find a job in international relations with the United States government, Carpenter enrolled at Stanford University to study electrical engineering. In 1957, he got a graduate student position in the Electrical Engineering Department at Stanford with a group led by Professor Robert (Bob) A. Helliwell. Helliwell and his team were conducting research to measure the properties of the ionosphere and magnetosphere by using whistlers, which are very low frequency (VLF) radio waves naturally emitted by lightning that make a descending whistling tone when amplified. Carpenter went on to earn a Master's in electrical engineering from Stanford in 1959 and a PhD in 1962. His research focused on using whistlers to map the structure of plasma in the magnetosphere. He found evidence of a boundary in the upper atmosphere where the density of plasma decreases and published a paper in 1966 about this boundary, calling it the plasmapause. He went to Antarctica in 1966 to visit Byrd Station and Longwire substation, which was used for VLF radio wave experiments. In 1974, Carpenter joined the electrical engineering faculty at Stanford. He conducted experiments with VLF radio waves at Siple Station in Antarctica from 1980 to 1981. Carpenter retired from Stanford in 1991 as professor emeritus of electrical engineering.
Carpenter was a member of the International Scientific Radio Union (URSI) and fellow of the American Geophysical Union. He received the John Howard Dellinger Medal from URSI in 2002.
The Donald L. Carpenter Oral History, dated 2002-2003, contains audio recordings and administrative information for the interview between Carpenter and Brian Shoemaker of the American Polar Society conducted on September 16, 2002. This interview was a part of a series of polar oral histories sponsored by American Polar Society and Ohio State University's Byrd Polar Research Center Archival Program, with funding from the National Science Foundation. Major topics that Carpenter discussed include his early college education, his difficulty getting a job in international relations with the United States government, working at Stanford with Robert (Bob) A. Helliwell to study whistlers, which are very low frequency (VLF) radio waves naturally emitted by lightning that make a descending whistling tone when amplified, the use of whistlers to measure the properties of the upper atmosphere, how data about whistlers and the upper atmosphere was collected at different stations in Antarctica, the study of the plasmasphere, which is the region of dense plasma in the upper atmosphere, and his experiences living at Siple Station in Antarctica to conduct experiments with VLF radio waves.