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CONTENTS This Article Is Based on the Conference from Dedicating the Meeting in Her Memory Opening Talk Given at the Just the Same January 2005 But this has not deterred the organizers of this CONTENTS This article is based on the conference from dedicating the meeting in her memory opening talk given at the just the same. This is not the first such conference conference Stellar Populations dedicated in her memory. The very first STScI Beatrice Tinsley: A Tribute 2003, held in Garching, Germany Symposium in 1985, also entitled Stellar Populations, Robert C. Kennicutt, Jr. on October 6–10, 2003. The was dedicated to Beatrice, and that meeting opened 1 conference was dedicated in with a similar dedicatory talk by Jim Gunn. memory of Beatrice M. Tinsley. For the many of you who never met Beatrice Nobel Prize for a “Computer” Photo by Moire Prescott Tinsley or worked on the subject when she was named Henrietta Leavitt active, it may come as a surprise that her colleagues would still be honoring her memory so (1868–1921) Beatrice Tinsley: A Tribute many years after her death. My task in this talk is to Pangratios Papacosta By Robert C. Kennicutt, Jr. explain why. I approach the task with some reluctance, because unlike Jim Gunn and her other 1 t has become customary in our profession, when close collaborators, I only met Tinsley briefly at the a distinguished scientist reaches the age of 60 or What Works for Women in end of her career (and at the beginning of my own), beyond, to organize a conference in his or her I so I cannot speak from firsthand observation. This is Undergraduate Physics? honor, a Festschrift. If Beatrice Tinsley were still with important because much of the greatness in this complex Barbara L. Whitten, Suzanne R. Foster, and us today there is little doubt that we would be holding person came from the way in which she interacted this conference on Stellar Populations in her honor. Margaret L. Duncombe with other scientists, young astronomers in particular. Unfortunately 22 years have passed since Tinsley’s So in order to remain on solid ground I will focus 9 death at age 40, so she was deprived of her Festschrift. Applying to Graduate School Continued on page 2 Fran Bagenal 15 ❊ Pangratios Papacosta came to the US from Cyprus (via the University of London, England) and Notes from a Life teaches science at Columbia College, Chicago. The following is a commentary on the life of Anonymous Readers’ Contributions Henrietta Leavitt. 17 The purpose of this short paper is Nobel Prize for a “Computer” to summarize the contents of a Women in Canadian Astronomy: named Henrietta Leavitt (1868–1921) A Ten Year Survey poster paper given by the author at the 2004 AAS annual meeting By Pangratios Papacosta Mike Reid and Brenda Matthews in Denver. The first objective of t is amazing that less than a hundred years ago 18 that poster paper was to disclose people believed that our universe was just the the content of letters by Professor I Progress on Gender Equity at Milky Way galaxy and that the spiral nebulae seen at Mittag, of the Swedish Academy its very edge were just disorganized leftover material. Nine Top Research Universities of Sciences, and by Dr. Harlow In 1924, only four years after the Great Debate J. L. Sokoloski Shapley, the director of the Harvard College between Heber D. Curtis and Harlow Shapley on the 21 Observatory. To the knowledge of the author none of size of our galaxy and on the possibility of “island these letters were published before. The second objective universes,” Edwin Hubble showed that one of those Childcare at University of of the poster paper was to suggest that the importance spiral nebulae, Andromeda, was indeed a galaxy with Arizona: Investing in the Future of Henrietta Leavitt’s discovery, the period-luminosity billions of stars, not at the edge of our galaxy but relation, has not been fully recognized by the public almost a million light years away. Hubble was Joannah Hinz and Jill Bechtold or fully appreciated by the astronomical community. meticulous and thorough in his work, but even with 23 Detailed description of the life and works of Henrietta such refined qualities, he would not have been able Leavitt and the difficult conditions under which she, to make this discovery if not for two other significant A Publication of the like most women of her time, had to work are topics factors. First, he was fortunate to be operating the American Astronomical of future publication. Society Committee 100-inch Hooker telescope at Mount Wilson, for on the Status of Women many years the largest telescope in the world. With in Astronomy Continued on page 7 2 STATUS A Tribute to Tinsley continued from page 1 most of my talk on her many fundamental contributions to the subjects of stellar populations and galaxy STATUS evolution, and the aspects of her science that were so special. Whenever appropriate I have added a few Edited by remarks about her life and the personal qualities Fran Bagenal (University of Colorado) behind her success, based on published accounts [email protected] (some of which are listed at the end of this article) and from conversations with many of her colleagues and Associate Editors friends. Hers is a remarkable story of scientific genius, Joannah Hinz (University of Arizona) personal courage and perseverance, and generosity of [email protected] spirit, and there are lessons in the story for all of us. Patricia Knezek (WIYN Observatory) [email protected] Early Life and Graduate School: 1941–1967 Contributing Editor Beatrice Muriel Hill was born in 1941 in Meg Urry (Yale University) Chester, England. Her family moved to New [email protected] Figure 1: Beatrice Tinsley, gifted Zealand five years later, and she remained there and dedicated teacher, mentor, through college. Today she is embraced as a and scientist. Design by national hero in her adopted homeland (see Krista Wildt (STScI) http://www.nzedge.com/index.html). Her intellectual [email protected] brilliance became apparent at an early age, and by age 14 she had decided to pursue a path in Published by astrophysics. She graduated from high school at age the American Astronomical Society 16 and entered Canterbury University, where she 2000 Florida Avenue, NW, Suite 400 earned a First in Physics (BSc), followed by an MSc Washington, DC 20009 degree in 1963. While in school she married a fellow © 2004 AAS space physicist, Brian A. Tinsley, and 1963 the couple All rights reserved. moved to Dallas, where Brian had been offered a long-term position at what is now the University of STATUS is produced at the Texas at Dallas. For the next 13 years Beatrice filled Space Telescope Science Institute the all-too-familiar role of the trailing partner, and in 3700 San Martin Drive the absence of a permanent job supported herself Baltimore, MD 21218 with an assortment of part-time teaching positions, visiting appointments, and research fellowships. Copyrights for contributed or reproduced Since UT Dallas did not offer a doctoral material may rest with the author. These articles program in astronomy at the time, Tinsley enrolled reflect the opinions of the authors, which are in the newly created Ph.D. program at UT Austin, not necessarily the opinions of the editors, and commuted the 200 miles weekly to complete her STScI or the AAS. STATUS is published for degree. Her graduate career at Austin is a department the personal use of AAS members. legend. She completed her degree in record time (1964–1967), working largely on her own, and the The STATUS newsletter is distributed to AAS thesis that emerged became a landmark work in its members at the January and June meetings and field. When The Astrophysical Journal published a sent to home institutions of subscribers during collection of 53 seminal papers from the 20th century the week of the meeting. Contributed articles in its 1999 Centennial Issue, Tinsley’s thesis paper are encouraged. Deadlines for submission are Evolution of the Stars and Gas in Galaxies was one October 1 and March 1, respectively. of them (Tinsley 1968, ApJ, 151, 547; also * ApJ, 525C, 1146 ). In her thesis Tinsley developed, For more information on subscribing to virtually from scratch, the theoretical apparatus for STATUS, submitting articles constructing evolutionary synthesis models of the or obtaining back issues, colors, gas contents, and chemical abundances please visit the STATUS website: of galaxies. She then applied her models to two http://www.aas.org/~cswa/status fundamental problems, the evolutionary nature of the Hubble sequence, and the change in the observed AAS members may receive hard copy by magnitudes and colors of galaxies with cosmological sending their postal address to look back time. In this one paper she helped to Dennis Renner, [email protected] establish the modern evolutionary picture of the Hubble sequence, and demonstrate that the effects of January 2005 3 galaxy evolution were readily observable to even But the main objective was to compute the modest redshifts, and thus needed to be accounted evolution in galaxies properties with cosmological for in the prevailing cosmological tests of the time. lookback time. Tinsley used her models to calculate From today’s perspective, when anyone can how the luminosities, colors, gas contents, and chemical access web-based model programs and compute a full abundances of galaxies evolved with cosmic time, grid of evolutionary models in a few mouseclicks, it and then applied these in turn to quantify how is difficult to overstate the groundbreaking and evolutionary brightening (what we today call forward-looking character of this work. For the “passive evolution”) would affect the use of elliptical modeling she had to collect evolutionary tracks from galaxies as standard candles for constraining the dozens of papers, and use color-magnitude diagrams geometry and deceleration history of the universe.
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