Cecilia Helena Payne-Gaposchkin
Personal Information
Born: 1900
Died: 1979
Country of Birth: Great Britain
Nationality: Great Britain; USA
Ethnicity: White
Education
Newnham College Cambridge never received a degree even though she completed all requirements because Cambridge did not award degrees to women until 1948; Harvard University PhD Astronomy 1925
Professional Life
Field of Study: Astrophysics; Astrochemistry
Institution/Corporation: Harvard College Observatory; Harvard University; Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
Degrees & Memberships: Honorary Degree: Rutgers University Wilson College Smith College Western College Colby College Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania; Member: Fellow American Association of Arts & Sciences (1943) Royal Astronomical Society (1923) American Philosophical Society (1936)
Awards & Achievements
Awards: Annie Jump Cannon Award in Astronomy (1934); Rittenhouse Medal (1961); Award of Merit from Radcliffe College (1952); Henry Norris Russell Lectureship(1976); an asteroid 2 awards a volcano on Venus & a telescope are named after her
Achievements: Explanation of stellar spectra and composition of theáSun more than 3 000 000 observations of variable stars; 1st female professor & dept chair at Harvard; her work with husband Sergei Gaposchkin on variable stars laid the basis for all subsequent work on the subject; published several books on astronomy
1925, proposed stars were composed primarily of hydrogen & helium
Became a US citizen in 1931
Showed how to decode the complicated spectra of starlight in order to learn the relative amounts of the chemical elements of the stars
1925 proposal was rejected because it went against the belief the Sun & Earth were primarily made of approximately the same elements
1956, 1st female professor & 1st female department chair at Harvard
Completed her studies at Cambridge but was not awarded a degree because the school did not award degrees to women until 1948
1925, 1st person to earn a PhD in astronomy from Radcliffe College
Henry Norris Russell was generally credited for the conclusions she reached
Her studies & data on variable stars were used to determine the paths of stellar evolution
spent her entire academic career at Harvard
1st recipient of the Annie Jump Cannon Award in 1934