First name

Mary Beth

Last name

Gorman Stearns

Academic unit

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Status

Deceased

Type of professor

Regents Professor

Year

1988

Bio image

Bio summary

Stearns joined ASU in 1981 as a professor of physics, coming from Ford Motor Company, where she served as principal scientist for more than 20 years. Stearns' work on gamma-ray scattering led her to study the energy levels of iron atoms, and this in turn led her to nuclear magnetic resonance studies of magnetic ions, and to theoretical work on the quantum structure of these materials.