1. Ellen Dorrit Hoffleit was an American senior research astronomer at Yale University.
10 Facts About Dorrit Hoffleit
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Dorrit Hoffleit is best known for her work in variable stars, astrometry, spectroscopy, meteors, and the Bright Star Catalog.
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Dorrit Hoffleit is known for her mentorship of many young women and generations of astronomers.
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Dorrit Hoffleit then went on to work for the Harvard College Observatory, searching for variable stars.
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Dorrit Hoffleit remained at Harvard until 1956 when she moved to Yale University.
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Dorrit Hoffleit engendered a lifelong interest in astronomy for young women and men, many of whom were just satisfying a prerequisite to their undergraduate degrees.
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Dorrit Hoffleit was the main editor of the Yale Bright Star Catalogue.
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Dorrit Hoffleit co-authored The General Catalogue of Trigonometric Stellar Parallaxes, containing precise distance measurements to 8,112 stars, information critical to understanding the kinematics of the Milky Way galaxy and the evolution of the solar neighborhood.
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In 1988, Dorrit Hoffleit was awarded the George Van Biesbroeck Prize by the American Astronomical Society for a lifetime of service to astronomy.
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Dorrit Hoffleit turned 100 on March 12,2007, and died a month later from complications of cancer.