The Universe Illuminated by Women

This Spring 2018 ExCollege course challenged the narrative that advancements in STEM fields are historically made by (white) men. It allowed students to build a deep understanding of astronomy and space exploration while learning about women who played crucial roles in shaping that understanding.

Students in "The Universe: Illuminated by Women" met at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, where about 250,000 glass photographic plates of the sky (amassed over close to 100 years) are housed. Students read about the plates, the women who analyzed them, and the groundbreaking discoveries that followed in Dava Sobel’s "The Glass Universe." Photo taken by Liam Brady.

Instructor Lynn Carlson is an astrophysicist who has worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Netherlands, France, and the United States, and is interested in alternative and interdisciplinary approaches to astronomy education. She completed her PhD in Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University with research through the Space Telescope Science Institute. Carlson explained:

Astronomers, engineers, mathematicians, and astronauts – their intellectual ambitions often clashed with contemporary expectations of womanhood, and their contributions to science were often dismissed or credited to male supervisors. Set against the backdrop of women’s evolving role in society, I am providing the astrophysical background necessary to understanding these women’s innovations. This includes background information on the evolution of astronomy, technicalities of how important astrophysical discoveries were made, and most importantly, what these discoveries mean.

The course curriculum, for example, covered Dava Sobel’s The Glass Universe, which recounts the work and women of the Harvard College Observatory. This includes Williamina Fleming, who identified ten novae and more than three hundred variable stars; Annie Jump Cannon, who designed a stellar classification system that was adopted by astronomers the world over and is still in use; and Dr. Cecilia Helena Payne, who in 1956 became the first ever woman professor of astronomy at Harvard—and Harvard’s first female department chair.

Of course, students also discussed the Hidden Figures behind NASA’s success, from its founding for aeronautics research as NACA through its groundbreaking shuttle flights. This includes the three African American mathematicians at NASA – Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson – who served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn. In addition, students focused on the women who have gone to space – and the Mercury 13 who did not.

Finally, the course highlighted modern astronomers and astrophysicists who have calculated galaxy evolution (like Beatrice Tinsley), characterized the large-scale structure of the universe (like Margaret Geller), and proven the existence of dark matter (like Vera Rubin).