Ann E. Bailie, from a 1961 publication of the United States Civil Service Commission
Born
Ann Eckels
1935
Littleton, New Hampshire
Died
2022
Occupation
Mathematician
Dorothy Ann Eckels Bailie (born 1935) is an American mathematician who worked at
Goddard Space Flight Center in the 1950s and 1960s. She was one of the three authors of the 1959 report establishing
Earth's shape as asymmetrical and "pear-shaped", based on data from
Vanguard 1.
Early life
Dorothy Ann Eckels was born in
Littleton, New Hampshire and raised in
Laconia, New Hampshire, the daughter of John C. Eckels and Dorothy R. Eckels.[1] Her father was a surgeon. Her maternal grandfather, Adolph Frederick Erdmann, was a pioneer in the field of
anesthesiology.[2][3] She earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics at
Middlebury College in 1957.[4] While at Middlebury, she was elected Queen of the school's Winter Carnival, an event she co-chaired.[5]
Career
Bailie worked at the
United States Naval Research Laboratory after college.[6] By 1959 she worked in the Theoretical Division of
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, on calculating and analyzing complex orbits for satellites.[7] She, R. Kenneth Squires, and
John A. O'Keefe were the team that determined that the Earth was asymmetrical and "pear-shaped",[8] based on data from Vanguard 1.[9][10]