/ April 4, 2022

Women have been astronomers since forever, but they have needed to be made of iron. Vera C. Rubin, who got her Ph.D. in 1954, was advised in school to stay away from science. She kept going anyway by telling herself she was just different from other people. She did her graduate studies where her husband’s job took them, raised children and then got a position where she was the only woman.

It has been more than half a century since Rubin attained her Ph.D. — we’re in a whole new millennium now. Has astronomy changed for the women in its ranks? Or have the women in its ranks changed astronomy?

In the April 2022 issue of Scientific American, Ann Finkbeiner profiled more than a dozen women who graduated with Ph.D.s in astronomy since 2000, including our own Sarah Tuttle, deputy director for science payloads and high altitude balloons.


Read the full article: Women Are Creating a New Culture for Astronomy. Scientific American; April 2022.

More Sarah Tuttle in the news