Payne-Gaposchkin << `payn` guh POSH kuhn >> Cecilia Helena (1900-1979), was an English-born astronomer who became an authority on variable stars (stars that change in brightness) and the structure of the Milky Way Galaxy. She was one of the first women to advance to the rank of professor at Harvard University and the first woman to head a department there.
Cecilia Payne was born on May 10, 1900, in Wendover. She graduated from Cambridge University in England in 1923. Later that year, she went to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she studied at Radcliffe College and worked extensively at the Harvard College Observatory. In 1925, she became the first woman to receive a doctorate in astronomy from Radcliffe. Her early work dealt with atmospheres of stars.
In 1934, Payne married the Russian-born Harvard astronomer Sergei Gaposchkin. They worked together on many variable star projects. Payne-Gaposchkin was a professor of astronomy at Harvard from 1956 to 1966. She was chairman of Harvard’s Department of Astronomy from 1956 to 1960. She died on Dec. 7, 1979.
