Writing Resources
Dr Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin Born Cecilia Helena Payne Wendover England May 10 1900 was a British American astrophysicist and astronomer who specialized in the classification of stars She was related to some notable figures such as historian Heinrich Pertz due to her mother s family However her father died when she was only four years old and her mother was left taking care of the three siblings She attended the independent all girls St Paul s School and won a scholarship to Oxford in 1919 where she studied botany chemistry and physics The following year she went to a lecture held by the knighted physicist Arthur Eddington about his famous expedition in 1919 to prove Einstein's Theory of General Relativity via the observation of a total solar eclipse This was described as a life changing moment for her and she said The result was a complete transformation of my world picture My world had been so shaken that I experienced something very like a nervous breakdown about the lecture and fell in love with astrophysics and astronomy She later talked with Eddington who encouraged her to keep pursuing her studies and despite the fact that she finished her schooling at Oxford she was never awarded a degree due to the fact that Oxford would not grant its first degrees to women 26 years later In 1923 she became the second recipient of a grant that was created to encourage women to study at the Harvard College
