Women in Astronomy: Spotlight on Sandra Faber

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 Women in Astronomy: 

Spotlight on Dr. Sandra Faber


    From the American Philosophical Society to the American Astronomical Society, and the Franklin Institute's Bower Prize to the Gruber Foundation's Cosmology Prize, there is one American woman who has made quite the name for herself in the field of astrophysics. Her name is Dr. Sandra Faber.

   


    Dr. Faber (born 1944) began her physics education at Swarthmore College where she earned a Bachelor's degree in Physics, with minors in Astronomy and Mathematics. She went on to earn her P.h.D. from Harvard, with the thesis Photometry of elliptical galaxies in multiple systems. She joined the faculty of University of California, Santa Cruz in the Lick Observatory (she was the first woman to do so) in 1972. She still works there today. 


    She is credited with several significant discoveries, such as the Faber-Jackson relation, which is used to estimate the distance to galaxies using the relationship between their luminosities and the movement of the stars within them. Her research also improved our understanding of dark matter's role in galaxy formation. 


    Her list of awards is lengthy, including Honorary degrees from the Universities of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Chicago (as well as several other academic institutions), the Magellanic Premium Medal from the American Philosophical Society, the Harvard Centennial Medal, Gruber Prize in Cosmology, Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (UK), as well as several others. She has held memberships in the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, just to name a few. She also served on the Harvard Board of Overseers. 



Sources:

- https://www.proquest.com/docview/302615200?parentSessionId=O1sjxU%2BUE1WQ0WARv7len3edo%2BIKZrLN6x4cbKtBPU8%3D 

- https://www.astro.ucsc.edu/faculty/index.php?uid=smfaber

- https://news.ucsc.edu/2009/02/2739.html

- https://aas.org/posts/news/2017/05/sandra-faber-receives-500000-gruber-cosmology-prize

- https://news.ucsc.edu/2011/01/faber-russell.html

- https://news.ucsc.edu/2019/04/faber-medal.html

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Faber 

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faber%E2%80%93Jackson_relation

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