Dame Carole Jordan, a British physicist, died on February 3, 2026, aged 84.
She was Professor Emeritus of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow at Somerville College, Oxford. Jordan was president of the Royal Astronomical Society from 1994 to 1996, the first woman to hold the post, and received its Gold Medal in 2005 as only the third female recipient.
She was also one of the first female professors in astronomy in Britain and was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2006 for services to physics and astronomy.
Dame Carole Jordan, DBE, FRS, FRAS, FInstP (19 July 1941 – 3 February 2026) was a British physicist, astrophysicist, astronomer and academic. She was Professor Emeritus of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow at Somerville College, Oxford. From 1994 to 1996, she was President of the Royal Astronomical Society; she was the first woman to hold this position. She won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2005; she was only the third female recipient following Caroline Herschel in 1828 and Vera Rubin in 1996. She was head of the Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics at the University of Oxford from 2003 to 2004 and 2005 to 2008, and was one of the first female professors in Astronomy in Britain. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2006 for services to physics and astronomy.