Jules Aarons

Jules Aarons studied at City College of New York. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is physics. Work by Jules Aarons is recorded in the collections of Museum of Modern Art. Distinctions recorded are Fulbright Scholarship.

• Name — Jules Aarons • Born — 3 October 1921 • Birthplace — Bronx, New York, U.S. • Died — 21 November 2008 • Place of death — Newton, Massachusetts, U.S. • Field — Physics, Photography • Training — City College of New York Boston University University of Paris

Aarons was born in the Bronx, New York City, where his father worked in the garment industry. He graduated from the City College of New York in 1942. During World War II he served in the Army Signal Corps. He studied physics at Boston University, earning his M.S. degree in 1949. In 1953 he won a Fulbright scholarship and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Paris.

From 1948 to 1981 Aarons worked as a senior scientist at the Air Force Geophysics Research Laboratory at Hanscom Field, where his research helped to improve satellite and global positioning technology. Sunanda Basu of the National Science Foundation described Aarons as "a pioneer in beacon satellite studies of the ionosphere" whose name "has now become synonymous with the field of ionospheric scintillations." Having worked with many European scientists while studying in Paris, in 1957 he formed the Joint Satellite Studies Group, an international group of scientists who studied atmospheric effects on satellite signals. This group eventually expanded to become the Beacon Satellite Studies (BSS) Group, which still holds biannual meetings around the world. Early on, he encouraged his BSS colleagues to set up numerous ionospheric monitoring stations, which later proved useful to the Air Force in designing its space-based communication and navigation systems. The group's research laid the groundwork for ionospheric space-weather studies. In 1981 Aarons became a research professor in the astronomy department at Boston University, and in 1987 helped to establish the university's Center for Space Physics. While at B.U. he researched the effects of magnetic storms on the equatorial and high-latitude ionosphere using GPS satellites. He published over a hundred scientific papers in the course of his career, and edited a book about scintillation phenomena.

• Black Boston: Documentary Photography and the African American Experience. Boston University Art Gallery, 1995. • Jules Aarons: In the Jewish Neighborhoods, 1946-76. DeCordova Museum, 2009. • Man in the Street: Jules Aarons Photographs Boston, 1947-1976. Boston Public Library, 2010. • Life in the West End 1947-1953: The Photography of Jules Aarons. West End Museum, 2013. • Three Photographers From the Bronx: Jules Aarons, Morton Broffman and Joe Conzo. Bronx Museum of Art, 2015.

Aarons married Jeannette Lampert in 1944 and had two sons, Philip and Herbert. He died at his home in Newton, Massachusetts on November 21, 2008.

As editor: * As author: • Solar System Radio Astronomy: Lectures Presented at the NATO Advanced Study Institute of the National Observatory of Athens (1965). Plenum Press. • High Latitude Models, Observations, and Analysis of Ionospheric Scintillations (1973). Air Force Cambridge Research Lab. • The Effects of Magnetic Storm Phases on F-Layer Irregularities from Auroral to Equatorial Latitudes (1989). Boston University Center for Space Physics.

Collections: • Shavelson, Michael B., ed. (1999). Jules Aarons: Photographs of Paris 1953-1968. Boston, MA: French Library and Cultural Center. • Schmidt, Aaron, ed. (1999). Into the streets, 1947-1976: Photographs of Boston. Boston, MA: Boston Public Library. • Margolis, Bernard, ed. (2002). Provincetown, 1949-1965 A Photographic Memoir by Jules Aarons. Boston, MA: Boston Public Library. • Sichel, Kim, ed. (2003). Jules Aarons: Street Portraits 1946-1976. Boston, MA: Charles River Publishing. • Melton, Julie, ed. (2006). Public Spaces, Private Moments: The Photographs of Jules Aarons. Boston, MA: Gallery Kayafas. History books and anthologies: • Kay, Jane Holtz (1980). Lost Boston. Houghton Mifflin. • Fisher, Sean M. (1992). The Last Tenement: Confronting Community and Urban Renewal in Boston's West End. Bostonian Society. • Sarna, Jonathan D. (1995). The Jews of Boston. Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston. • Conway, Lorie (1996). Boston the Way It Was: Pictures and Memories from the 30s and 40s. WGBH Boston. • Lafo, Rachel Rosenfield (2000). Photography in Boston 1955-1985. The MIT Press.