From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin is undoubtedly one of the foremost astronomers of the 20th century. In 1925, she became the first person to earn a Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard for her dissertation "Stellar Atmospheres, A Contribution to the Observational Study of High Temperature in the Reversing Layers of Stars". This remarkable and insightful document, described by astronomer Otto Struve as "undoubtedly the most brilliant Ph.D. thesis ever written in astronomy", advocated for the first time that hydrogen was the overwhelming constituent of the stars.
Payne-Gaposchkin remained scientifically active throughout her life, spending her entire academic career at Harvard. Although for decades she held no official position there, she eventually became the first female tenured professor at Harvard, and later its first female department chair. The trail she blazed into the largely male-dominated scientific community has been an inspiration to many.
