Ann Merchant Boesgaard | |
|---|---|
 Boesgaard in 1969 | |
| Born | (1939-03-21)March 21, 1939 (age 86) |
| Education | Mount Holyoke CollegeUniversity of California, Berkeley |
| Known for | Stellar evolution,Astronomical spectroscopy,Nucleosynthesis |
| Spouse | Hans Boesgaard (m. 1966) |
| Awards | Henry Norris Russell Lectureship Guggenheim FellowshipSmithsonian FellowCollège de France MedalMuhlmann Prize of theAstronomical Society of the Pacific American Astronomical Society Legacy Fellow |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astronomy |
| Institutions | University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa |
| Academic advisors | Robert F. Howard Jesse Greenfield George Herbig |
| Website | http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~boes/ |
Ann Merchant Boesgaard (née Merchant; born March 21, 1939) is an American astronomer and professor emerita known for her work on the structure and evolution of stars. The minor planet7804 Boesgaard was named after her in 1998,[1] and in 2019, she received theAmerican Astronomical Society's highest award, theHenry Norris Russell Lectureship.[2]
Ann Merchant grew up in Rochester, New York. After her father left when she was five, she and her sister,Carolyn, were raised by their mother, Elizabeth Barnes Merchant. To make ends meet, the family moved in with Ann's grandmother, Estelle Barnes Davis, and great-aunt, Aurelia Huntington.[3] Elizabeth Merchant had studied mathematics atVassar College for two years before she was married, which enabled her to get a job in the accounting department atEastman Kodak after the divorce to support daughters Ann and Carolyn. She taught Ann the constellations from a young age, and Ann's firstGirl Scouts badge was inastronomy. Ann wanted to be anastronaut, but her gender, poor eyesight, and lack oftest pilot experience made that dream impossible.[4]
Boesgaard received her bachelor's degreemagna cum laude in 1961 fromMount Holyoke College.[5] She wrote her final thesis onsolar rotation with Dr. Robert F. Howard from theUniversity of Massachusetts.[4] In the summer of 1961, she moved to California to work for Dr. Jesse Greenfield atCalTech before starting her PhD at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, where she conducted her thesis research on lithium (Li) inred giants andsupergiants withGeorge Herbig. She graduated in 1966.[5]
After graduating from UC Berkeley, Boesgaard applied for a post doctoralCarnegie Fellowship to work at the Mount Wilson andPalomar Observatories in Southern California, but she was denied. Instead, she returned to work with Dr. Greenfield at CalTech.[4] In September 1966, she became the first woman to have a telescope assigned in her name at theMount Wilson Observatory.[4] The next year, in 1967, she moved to Hawai'i and became a professor of astronomy at the newly createdInstitute for Astronomy at theUniversity of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She continued her own research while working with undergraduate and graduate researchers and the university.
Over the next several decades, Boesgaard broke gender barriers in her field and gained recognition and acclaim for her work.[6] She was the first woman awarded a tenure-track faculty position in astronomy at the University of Hawai'i. In 1977, she became the first woman to be elected president of theAstronomical Society of the Pacific, a post she held until 1979. She concurrently served on theAmerican Astronomical Society Council from 1978-1981.[4] In 1998, the minor planet7804 Boesgaard was named after her, as proposed by Dutch astronomersC.J. van Houten andIngrid van Houten-Groeneveld.[1]
Boesgaard retired from teaching in 2006, a couple of years after her husband, Hans Boesgaard, suffered a heart attack. She retired fully and became professor emerita in 2009, although she continues to use theKeck telescope for observation.[4] In 2020, she was elected a Legacy Fellow of theAmerican Astronomical Society.[7]
Boesgaard's research focuses on the light element content - lithium, beryllium, and boron - of stars and the atmospheres of giant stars.[4] She discovered that as galaxies age, the amount of heavy elements increases, thereby allowing astronomers to date stars based on their metal content. She has published more than 160 academic papers.[8]
Merchant met her husband, Hans Boesgaard, an engineer who works on telescopes, while working at theLick Observatory in Mount Hamilton, California, with George Herbig. They married in 1966.[11] At first, the two rarely lived in the same place due to their jobs, so they had to look for ways to see each other during overlapping projects. They eventually settled together in Hawai'i.[4]
This article incorporatespublic domain material from websites or documents of theLibrary of Congress.
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