An impressive number of patents have been awarded to Ms. Del Grande for her specialty findings, including a method to identify terrestrial heat flow anomalies.
NEWARK, CA, December 18, 2023 /24-7PressRelease/ — Nancy A.K. Del Grande is a distinguished biographee of Marquis Who’s Who. As in all Marquis Who’s Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are chosen from among a pool of the most prominent professionals and are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Ms. Del Grande’s interest in the sciences began with her exposure to the Manhattan Project and the intricate details about the atom and its structure, which she researched in her early 20’s. Her illustrious career as a physicist began in 1959 with an appointment at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, CA. By 1981, she had advanced to the rank of senior physicist, a position in which she excelled through 1999. Concurrent with her tenure there, Ms. Del Grande became the chief executive officer and president of Geo-Temp Corporation, a firm she co-founded in 1985, and between 1995 and 1999, she accepted another distinct opportunity to become adviser for the FHWA project focused on improved bridge-corrosion and inspection techniques. Another notable professional contract dates from 1992 to 1994 when Ms. Del Grande was the project physicist for the FAA as the division worked to lower the threshold for the detection of corrosion.
Ms. Del Grande acknowledges her father’s example of academic achievement and his work as a consultant and teacher as defining factors in her own educational and career paths; in fact, her father earned a PhD at Stanford University and himself worked on the Manhattan Project. Ms. Del Grande is proud to have attended Mount Holyoke College where she completed a Bachelor of Arts in physics, after which she pursued an advanced degree at her mother’s alma mater, earning a Master of Science in physics from Stanford University.
Credited with being the first female physicist to design, field and test a major diagnostic experiment on a nuclear device, Ms. Del Grande has captured international attention through a variety of recognitions, including being appointed to a United Nations post at the University of Mexico Geothermal Resources Thermal Modeling in 1979. Moreover, in 1972, she was an active member of the international symposium in Munich, Germany, and working at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1991, Ms. Del Grande was dedicated to mentoring others in the field by conducting an airborne archeology seminar.
An impressive number of patents have been awarded to Ms. Del Grande for her specialty findings, including a method to identify terrestrial heat flow anomalies, which was recognized with a U.S. patent in 1977 and 2022. She was also the co-inventor of specific emissivity corrected methods to identify anomalous structural heat flows, which was granted a U.S. patent in 1995, as was a thermal inertia imaging method to detect subsurface objects that she revealed in 2007, after which a Canadian patent was issued for a similar 2012 project centered on thermal imaging methods. In further support of Ms. Del Grande’s extensive influence, her determined protocols for remotely sensing subsurface objects and air gaps earned an Israeli patent in 2013.
A stellar record of scholarly production is a substantial component of Ms. Del Grande’s professional presence. She initially wrote x-ray space spectra articles, dating to 1969, then progressed to more comprehensive studies that went to publication between 1973 and 1981 in association with her work as a full-time physicist with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. She was also gratified to publish a main feature article in the Geothermal Resources Bulletin in 1985. Ms. Del Grande remains committed to research and to her credit are more recent publications such as the 2023 article titled “Deleting the Unseen” and the 2009 piece “Thermal Inertia Contrast Detection of Subsurface Structures,” which were disseminated in Proceedings of the Society for Photo Industrial Engineering.
Ms. Del Grande attributes her success to a stalwart dedication to service and her genuine passion for the field of physics. Alongside her father’s exemplary model, she credits Asher S. Kaufman, a physicist and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as well as a fortuitous meeting with a Nobel prize winner who offered critical advice early in her career. Ms. Del Grande remains grateful to have had such an exciting career and aims to continue learning and deploying her knowledge and expertise in service to the field and to motivate other active scientists.
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Since 1899, when A. N. Marquis printed the First Edition of Who’s Who in America®, Marquis Who’s Who® has chronicled the lives of the most accomplished individuals and innovators from every significant field of endeavor, including politics, business, medicine, law, education, art, religion and entertainment. Marquis celebrates its 125th anniversary in 2023, and Who’s Who in America® remains an essential biographical source for thousands of researchers, journalists, librarians and executive search firms around the world. Marquis® publications may be visited at the official Marquis Who’s Who® website at www.marquiswhoswho.com.
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