Evans V. Hayward

1922-2020

Evans V. Hayward earned her B.A. in physics at Smith College in 1942; her M.A. in physics from the University of California in 1945; and her Ph.D. from the University of California in 1947. She did her thesis research on cloud-chamber studies of cosmic rays at the University of California Radiation Laboratory. She was hired to the Neutron Physics Section at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS, now the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST) in 1950. Hayward was promoted to leader of the Neutron Physics Group, where she served from 1975 to 1986. Concurrently, she was deputy chief of Nuclear Radiation Division from 1978 to 1980. 

Notable honors and awards: 

• Silver Medal, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1958
• Guggenheim Fellow, Institute for Theoretical Physics, Copenhagen, 1961-62
• Sir Thomas Lyle Fellow, University of Melbourne, 1969
• Gold Medal, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1971
• Federal Women’s Award, 1975
• Samuel Wesley Stratton Award, National Bureau of Standards, 1980
• Fellow, National Bureau of Standards, 1987
• Fellow, American Physical Society 

Other positions and appointments:

• Guest professor, Institute for Nuclear Physics, Goethe University, 1966
• Visiting professor, physics, University of Toronto, 1975
• Guest professor, experimental physics, Max Planck Institute, 1982-86
• Senior visiting scientist, Nuclear Physics Laboratory, Oxford, 1985-86
• Visiting professor, physics, Duke University, 1987
• Visiting scientist, Physics Institute, University of Lund, 1987
• Adjunct professor, physics, Duke University, 1990

Research interests: precision measurements of photoneutron production cross sections; studies of the scattering and absorption of photons by deformed nuclei; and study of photofission in spatially oriented nuclei