Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
10 May 1900 – 7 December 1979
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (1900-1979) was a British-American astronomer whose 1925 doctoral thesis first showed that stars are composed predominantly of hydrogen and helium, revolutionizing understanding of stellar composition. She became the first woman to be promoted to full professor at Harvard and the first to chair a department there.
Lived at the same time
Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin.
- A. Philip Randolph (1889–1979) Overlapped 79 years →
- Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) Overlapped 79 years →
- Louis de Broglie (1892–1987) Overlapped 79 years →
- Pyotr Kapitsa (1894–1984) Overlapped 79 years →
- Aaron Copland (1900–1990) Overlapped 79 years →
- Albert Szent-Györgyi (1893–1986) Overlapped 79 years →
Life events
Cecilia Helena Payne was born in Wendover, Buckinghamshire, England.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgShe studied botany, physics and chemistry at Newnham College, Cambridge, but was not granted a degree because Cambridge did not award degrees to women at the time.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgShe emigrated to the United States to join the Harvard College Observatory on a fellowship.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHer PhD thesis showed that hydrogen and helium are the overwhelmingly dominant constituents of stars.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgShe married the Russian-born astronomer Sergei Gaposchkin, with whom she collaborated on studies of variable stars.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgShe was appointed a full professor, the first woman to attain that rank at Harvard through the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgShe became the first woman to head a department at Harvard University.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgShe received the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the American Astronomical Society for her lifetime of achievement.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgCecilia Payne-Gaposchkin died in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the age of 79.
Source: en.wikipedia.org