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Anna Estelle Glancy (1883-10-20--1975-05-19) Anna Estelle Glancy was born in Waltham, Massacheusetts and studied at Wellesley College before migrating across the country to persue her interest in a career in astronomy. She arrived in Berkeley weeks before the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. Glancy used Lick Observatory’s 6-inch Willard and Dallmeyer cameras, mounted on the Crocker Telescope throughout the three months of comet Morehouse’s 1908 apparition, exposing and developing more than eighty 8 x 10 inch glass plates, resulting in a superb series of images that beautifully illustrate the comet’s changing shape. Although her classmate, Phoebe Waterman submitted her thesis first, Glancy and Waterman graduated on the same day, 14 May 1913, thereby becoming the two first women to earn a doctorate at the University of California, in any subject. Glancy spent the next five years as an observer at the Argentine National Observatory in Cordoba. Returning to the US in 1918, she took a job with the American Optical Company (later acquired by Carl Zeiss Vision), where, for the next 33 years, she distinguished herself in mathematical optics and lens design, acquiring a number of patents for lenses used in cameras, telescopes, military equipment and opthalmic instruments - perhaps most famously, the Tillyer lens (a precursor of modern-day varifocals) the calculations for which consumed 10 years of Glancy's career and filled 13 volumes. She is also remembered for having been an inspiration and mentor to her colleagues, once quoted as having stated: "It's really very simple - two things. First, don't ever take a job for money. Second, only work at what you enjoy". |
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Emma Phoebe Waterman Haas (1882-09-20--1967) A native of North Dakota, Emma Phoebe Waterman graduated from Vassar College with a B.A. (1904) and Master's degree in mathematics and astronomy. From 1909 to 1911, she worked with George Ellery Hale, Walter Adams, Jacobus Kapteyn and others as a computer at the Mount Wilson Observatory. Based on observations acquired with Lick's 36-inch refractor coupled to a spectrograph, her thesis, "The Visual Region of the Spectrum of the Brighter Class A Stars", led Waterman to become one of the two first women to earn a doctorate at the University of California, in any subject. Following her graduation, Waterman was appointed to the Argentine National Observatory in Cordoba. En route, she met her future husband, Otto Haas and appended his surname upon their marriage in 1914. In the decades thereafter, Phoebe continued in the service of research astronomy, both as observer and administrator, most notably through her contributions to the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO). The public observatory of the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington D.C. is named in her honor. Image credit: Phoebe Waterman Haas Photo Album [Digital Scans], Accession 2015-0045, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution. |
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Virginia Trimble Virginia Trimble is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at UC Irvine and the oldest member of the department still on active duty. Virginia sponsored the Observational Astronomy Workshops in: 2013 & 2014 (in honor of Mary Lea & C. Donald Shane); 2015 (in honor of Rudolph L. Minkowski); 2016 (in honor of George H. Herbig) and 2017 (in honor of Robert P. Kraft). Virginia is a graduate of Hollywood High School, UCLA, and Caltech (PhD 1968) and holds an honorary M.A. degree from the University of Cambridge (UK) and dottora honoris causa from the University of Valencia (Spain). She has been involved in governance in AAS, APS, IAU, IUPAP, PBK, Sigma Xi, ASP and some other organizations and is currently interested in the structure and evolution of stars, galaxies, and the universe, and of the communities of scientists who study them. As a student at CalTech, Trimble modelled for Richard P. Feynman's artwork. For 16 years, Trimble read every astronomical paper published in 23 journals. Preceded by Vera Rubin, Trimble was the second woman to be granted research time with the 200-inch Hale telescope on Palomar mountain. Since the 1960s, as the spouse of gravitational wave astronomy pioneer Joseph Weber, Virginia has been integral to the development and fruition of this major new field, as acknowleged during the 2016-02-11 NSF press conference announcing the first direct detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO instrument. |
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Elinor Gates Elinor is a staff astronomer at Lick Observatory specializing in laser guide star adaptive optics and near infrared camera instrumentation and observations. She received her Ph.D. in Physics/Astronomy from the University of New Mexico in 1998. Her current research interests are studying quasars and their host galaxies. |
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Paul Lynam Paul is a staff astronomer at Lick Observatory. An amateur astronomer since childhood, after UK-based undergraduate studies, master's research and a Ph.D. in astrophysics (2000), he spent three years at the Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE, Germany). Having attended research observatories worldwide, he then joined the European Southern Observatory (ESO, Germany) and two years later, relocated to Chile, supporting operations of the Very Large Telescope (VLT). He continued as a VLT operations astronomer until late 2010. His research includes giant galaxies, clusters of galaxies, large-scale structure and "cosmic flows." |
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Patrick Maloney Pat Maloney has been actively involved with Astronomy since he ground an 8-inch mirror and built his first telescope as a high school freshman. He has operated telescopes for public viewing programs at various colleges and universities. He currently teaches astronomy labs at Santa Clara University. For many years, Pat has also operated the 36-inch and 40-inch telescopes for Lick Observatory’s summer evening programs. |
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