Biography

He was born on March 3, 1897 to Micajah Poulter in Salem, Iowa

Salem, Iowa

Salem is a city in Henry County, Iowa, United States. The population was 464 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Salem is located at .According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all of it land....

.

While he was a physics professor at Iowa Wesleyan College

Iowa Wesleyan College

Iowa Wesleyan College is a private four-year liberal arts college of the United Methodist Church located Mt. Pleasant, Iowa.Iowa Wesleyan is recognized as a pioneer in higher education in America. Founded in 1842, it ranks as the oldest coeducational college located west of the Mississippi River...

 he recognized James Van Allen

James Van Allen

James Alfred Van Allen was an American space scientist at the University of Iowa.The Van Allen radiation belts were named after him, following the 1958 satellite missions in which Van Allen had argued that a Geiger counter should be used to detect charged particles.- Life and career :* September...

 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

Poulter Glacier

Poulter Glacier In Antarctica about 180 miles from the South Pole at an elevation of 8,000 feet. It flows east from the Antarctic Plateau past the Rawson Mountains in the Queen Maud Mountains and joins with the Scott Glacier. It was discovered by the Byrd Antarctic Expedition II Geology Party under...

 was named after him by Admiral Byrd. He is credited with rescuing Admiral Byrd after Byrd suffered 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

Illinois Institute of Technology

Illinois Institute of Technology, commonly called Illinois Tech or IIT, is a private Ph.D.-granting university located in Chicago, Illinois, with programs in engineering, science, psychology, architecture, business, communications, industrial technology, information technology, design, and law...

) where he developed the Antarctic snow cruiser

Antarctic snow cruiser

The Antarctic Snow Cruiser was a vehicle designed from 1937 to 1939 under the direction of Thomas Poulter, intended to facilitate transport in the Antarctic. While having several innovative features, it generally failed to operate as hoped under the difficult conditions, and was eventually...

 (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

Weather

Weather is the state of the atmosphere, to the degree that it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. Most weather phenomena occur in the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather refers, generally, to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate...

 and eventually Biosonar . He became interested in seals after visiting the Elephant Seal

Elephant seal

Elephant seals are large, oceangoing seals in the genus Mirounga. There are two species: the northern elephant seal and the southern elephant seal . Both were hunted to the brink of extinction by the end of the 19th century, but numbers have since recovered...

 colony at Año Nuevo Island

Año Nuevo Island

Año Nuevo Island is a small island off Año Nuevo Point on the coast of Northern California, between San Francisco and Santa Cruz. It is an important breeding site for Northern Elephant Seals and the endangered Steller's Sea Lion, as well as several species of seabirds, including Rhinoceros...

 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 .

Poulter Laboratory at SRI International

SRI International

SRI International , founded as Stanford Research Institute, is one of the world's largest contract research institutes. Based in Menlo Park, California, the trustees of Stanford University established it in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region. It was later...

 was named after him. After he retired from managing Poulter Labs he founded the Bio Sonar Lab and Marine Mammal Study Center for SRI in the Coyote Hills outside of Fremont CA.. There he did research on a number of marine mammals. He was fond of them as he described in a "Note" for the Arctic

He died on June 4, 1978 in Menlo Park, California

Menlo Park, California

Menlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...

.

Publications

• Poulter, T. C., Allen, C. F., and Miller, S. W., (1950) Seismic measurements on the Taku Glacier, in Geophysical tudies in the Antarctic; Contract N8onr 526, ProjectNo. NR-081-020, published by the Stanford Research Institute.
• Poulter, T. C. (1950) The Poulter seismic method of geophysical exploration, Geophysics, Vol. 1 5, pp. 1 81 -207.
• Poulter, T. C., (1950) The Poulter Seismic Method, The Canadian Mining and Metalluraical Bulletin, May, pp. 258–267.
• Poulter, T. C. 1963. Sonar signals of the sea lion. Science,, 139 753-755
• Poulter, T. C. 1963. The sonar of the sea lion. Inst. Elec. Electron. Eng. Trans., 10, 109-111
• Pressure regulation in the middle ear cavity of sea lions: a possible mechanism S Odend'hal, T C Poulter Science. 1966 Aug 12;153 (737):768-9 5940898
• Orr, R. T. and T. C. Poulter (1967) Some observations on reproduction, growth, and social behavior in the Steller sea lion Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 35:193–226
• Sea lion echo ranging H N Shaver, T C Poulter The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 1967 Aug
• R C Hubbard, T C Poulter 1968 Seals and sea lions as models for studies in comparative biology Lab Anim Care. 1968 Apr ;18 (2):Suppl:288-97 4233361
• Watkins, W.; Singleton, R.; Poulter, T. Comments on spectral analysis of the calls of the Male Killer Whale Audio and Electroacoustics, IEEE Transactions on Volume 16, Issue 4, Dec 1968 Page(s): 523 - 523
• R J Stephens, I J Beebe, T C Poulter Innervation of the vibrissae of the California sea lion, Zalophus californianus Anat Rec. 1973 Aug ;176 (4):421-41 4723405
• W B Neff, M T Sullivan, T C Poulter A magnetic-drive circulator designed for completely closed carbon dioxide absorption systems Anesthesiology. 1979 Aug ;51 (2):169-70 453621