Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
Born	Cecilia Helena Payne (1900-05-10)May 10, 1900 Wendover, Buckinghamshire, England
Died	December 7, 1979(1979-12-07) (aged 79) Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
Citizenship	British Dual British & United States (from 1931)
Education	St Paul's Girls' School
Alma mater	Newnham College, Cambridge; Harvard University
Known for	Explanation of stellar spectra and composition of the Sun, more than 3,000,000 observations of variable stars
Spouse	Sergei I. Gaposchkin
Children	3
Awards	Annie Jump Cannon Award in Astronomy (1934), Rittenhouse Medal (1961), Award of Merit from Radcliffe College (1952), Henry Norris Russell Prize (1976)
Scientific career
Fields	Astronomy, astrophysics
Institutions	Harvard College Observatory, Harvard University
Thesis	Stellar Atmospheres: A contribution to the observational study of high temperature in the reversing layers of stars (1925)
Doctoral advisor	Harlow Shapley
Doctoral students	Helen Sawyer Hogg, Joseph Ashbrook, Frank Kameny, Frank Drake, Paul W. Hodge
Signature

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (born Cecilia Helena Payne; (1900-05-10)May 10, 1900 – (1979-12-07)December 7, 1979) was a British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist. In her 1925 doctoral thesis she proposed that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium.^[1] Her groundbreaking conclusion was initially rejected, because it contradicted the science of the time, which held that no significant elemental differences distinguished the Sun and Earth. Independent observations eventually proved that she was correct. Her work on the nature of variable stars was foundational to modern astrophysics.^[1][2][3]