One of the more outstanding physicists
[2] that Australia has ever produced and one of the first people in the world to consider the possibility of
radio astronomy, and thereby responsible for what is now a fundamental part of the modern lexicon of science, she was often the only woman in her classes at the University of Sydney.
Her career arguably reached its zenith while working for the
Australian government's
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (then called CSIR, now known as CSIRO) at
Dover Heights,
Hornsby and especially
Potts Hill in
Sydney, Australia. Some of her fundamental contributions to solar radio astronomy came at the end of this period. She is the discoverer of Type I and Type III bursts
[3] and participated in the recognition of Type II and IV bursts. Payne-Scott played a major role in the first-ever radio astronomical
interferometer observation from 26 January 1946, when the sea-cliff interferometer was used to determine the position and angular size of a solar burst. This observation occurred at either Dover Heights (ex Army shore defence radar) or at Beacon Hill, near Collaroy on Sydney's north shore (ex Royal Australian Air Force surveillance radar establishment - however this radar did not become active until early 1950).
[4]
During
World War II, she was engaged in
top secret work investigating
radar. She was the expert on the detection of aircraft using PPI (
Plan Position Indicator) displays. She was also at the time a member of the Communist Party
[5] and an early advocate for
women's rights. The
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) was interested in Payne-Scott and had a substantial file on her activities, with some distortions.[
citation needed]