Thomas Poulter
| Thomas Charles Poulter | |
|---|---|
| Born |
March 3, 1897 Salem, Iowa |
| Died | June 4, 1978 (aged 81) Menlo Park, California |
| Institutions |
Iowa Wesleyan College Illinois Institute of Technology SRI International |
| Known for | Arctic exploration |
Thomas Charles Poulter (March 3, 1897 – June 4, 1978) was a scientist and arctic explorer who worked at the Armour Institute of Technology and SRI International, where he was an associate director.
He was born on March 3, 1897 to Micajah Poulter in Salem, Iowa.
While he was a physics professor at Iowa Wesleyan College he recognized James Van Allen as a student and put him to work, at 35 cents an hour, preparing seismic and magnetic equipment for the Antarctic Expedition.
He was second in command on the Second Byrd Antarctic Mission to the South Pole with Richard E. Byrd. The Poulter Glacier was named after him by Admiral Byrd. Byrd credited him with saving his life as the expedition leader approached death from carbon monoxide poisoning.
After his first expedition he became the Scientific Director of the Armour Research Foundation at the Armour Institute of Technology (later Illinois Institute of Technology) where he developed the Antarctic Snow Cruiser (a.k.a. "Penguin 1"). This device was built for and taken along on his second expedition with Admiral Byrd in 1939.
In 1948 he joined the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in Menlo Park, California, where he remained until his death in 1978. While at SRI he did research involving dynamic phenomena including explosives weather and eventually Biosonar. He became interested in seals after visiting the elephant seal colony at Año Nuevo Island off the coast of California in 1961. The seal colony there included elephant seals, sea lions harbor seals and many others. He began studying the seal colonies in 1962 and was active in having the island protected as a biological preserve in 1967.
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