Virginia Louise Trimble | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Trimble in 1988 | |
| Born | (1943-11-15)November 15, 1943 (age 82) |
| Education | UCLA,Caltech,Cambridge |
| Known for | Annual reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Studies of telescope productivity |
| Spouse | Joseph Weber |
| Awards | NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing Klopsteg Memorial Award George Van Biesbroeck Prize honorary doctorate from theUniversity of Valencia Andrew Gemant Award |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astrophysics,cosmology,history of astronomy,history of science |
| Thesis | Motions and structure of the filamentary envelope of the Crab Nebula[1] |
| Doctoral advisor | Guido Münch |
| Website | http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=3060 |
Virginia Louise Trimble (born November 15, 1943) is an Americanastronomer specializing in the structure and evolution ofstars andgalaxies, and thehistory of astronomy.[2] She has published more than 600 works in Astrophysics,[3] and dozens of other works in the history of other sciences. She is famous for an annual review ofastronomy andastrophysics research that was published in the Publications of theAstronomical Society of the Pacific, and often gives summary reviews at astrophysical conferences.[4] In 2018, she was elected a Patron of theAmerican Astronomical Society, for her many years of intellectual, organizational, and financial contributions to the society.[5]
Trimble "grew up the only child of a chemist father and a mother with a flair for language, within easy driving distance of both UCLA and Caltech."[6] While attendingUCLA in 1962, she was the subject of aLife article titled "Behind a Lovely Face, a 180 I.Q."[7] The following year, she was selected to promoteThe Twilight Zone television show as "Miss Twilight Zone" in a national publicity tour.[8] She received her B.A. from UCLA in 1964 and her Ph.D. from theCalifornia Institute of Technology in 1968. At the time, the California Institute of Technology did not admit women students "except under exceptional circumstances,"[9] and she was only the second woman allowed access to thePalomar Observatory.[10] Following a year of teaching atSmith College and two years postdoctoral work at theInstitute of Theoretical Astronomy in Cambridge, Trimble joined the faculty of theUniversity of California, Irvine in 1971, where she is now Professor ofastronomy. She metUniversity of Maryland, College Park ProfessorJoseph Weber, a pioneer ingravitational wave physics, in 1972 and they married 11 days later. From then until his death in 2000, she spent half of each academic year as a visiting professor at the University of Maryland.[11] She was vice president of theInternational Astronomical Union's Executive Committee from 1994-2000,[12] and vice president of theAmerican Astronomical Society from 1997-2000.[13]
