Alice Payne

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Alice Payne
Born
1940

Edmonton, Alberta
NationalityCanadian
Alma materUniversity of Alberta

Alice Virginia Payne is a Canadian geologist, and became the first female president of the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists in 1992.

Early life and education[]

Born in Edmonton, Alberta in 1940[1][2] as the eldest of three children, Payne spent much of her time in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories supervising work at her father's gold mine and prospecting minerals.[3] Her mother was a nurse and preferred for Payne to pursue a traditional woman's occupation, resulting in Payne's enrollment at Havergal College, an all-girls school in Toronto, in 1955.[4] She was awarded the Old Girls Life Achievement Award by Havergal.[4] Payne earned her BSc in Geology at the University of Alberta in 1962,[2][5] and was the only female in her graduating class.[6]

Career[]

After graduation, Payne joined the Geological Survey of Canada in 1962 where her work was limited to the lab, a typical situation as women-geologists worked only as lab technicians in the 1960s. Wanting to perform field work, Payne obtained an MSc in Geology at the University of Alberta in 1965,[5] but the higher degree did not promote her to field work as she had hoped.[1][2][3]

Social norms towards female scientists were changing in the late 1960s, and Payne found work in short-term projects, and for the University.[6] In 1979, Payne was hired as an exploration geologist for Gulf Canada Resources in Calgary, Alberta[6] where she continued as Senior Geologist for 15 years.[2] During her time at Gulf Canada Resources, she used her expertise in hardrock mining to introduce a new method for searching for oil and gas, and was eventually promoted to supervisor, a rarity in those times for a woman.[1][6] In 1992, she became the first female president of the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists (CSPG), then acted as director of the Calgary Science Centre from 1995 to 1997.[1] Payne retired in 1995, and started her own company Arctic Enterprises Limited.[6][7]

In 2000, she published Quin Kola: Tom Payne's Search for Gold about her father.[6]

Awards[]

  • Order of Canada (1997)[1]
  • YWCA of Calgary's Women of Distinction for Science, Technology and the Environment (1998)[1]
  • 1997-1998 Service Awards (CSPG) [1]
  • 2000 Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree, University of Calgary [2]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Cook, Sharon Anne; McLean, Lorna R; O'Rourke, Kate (2006). Framing Our Past: Constructing Canadian Women's History in the Twentieth Century. McGill-Queen's University Press. pp. 311–313. ISBN 9780773531598.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d "Petroleum History Society - Archives Newsletter February 2001, Feature Articles". petroleumhistory.ca. Retrieved 2018-09-22.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b Marilou. "Alice Virginia Payne | CWSE-ON". www.cwse-on.ca. Retrieved 2018-09-22.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b "Alice Payne 1959 | Havergal College". Havergal College. Retrieved 2018-09-22.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b "New Trail Winter 2014". Issuu. Retrieved 2018-09-22.
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f "science.ca : Alice Virginia Payne". www.science.ca. Retrieved 2018-09-22.
  7. ^ Holmes, Gillian K.; Davidson, Evelyn (2000). Who's Who in Canadian Business 2001. University of Toronto Press. p. 953. ISBN 978-0920966600.

Further reading[]

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