18 Facts About Margaret Burbidge

Eleanor Margaret Burbidge, FRS was a British-American observational astronomer and astrophysicist.

Margaret Burbidge held several leadership and administrative posts, including director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory, president of the American Astronomical Society, and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Margaret Burbidge worked at the University of London Observatory, Yerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago, the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, the California Institute of Technology, and the University of California San Diego.

Margaret Burbidge studied at University College London, where she received an undergraduate degree in 1939 and a Ph.

Margaret Burbidge was turned down for a postdoctoral fellowship from Carnegie Observatories in 1945 because the job required observing at Mount Wilson Observatory, which was reserved for men only at that time.

Margaret Burbidge returned to the UK in 1953, when Margaret and her husband Geoffrey Burbidge were invited to work with William Alfred Fowler and Fred Hoyle at the University of Cambridge.

Margaret Burbidge was the first author of the paper, which was written while she was pregnant.

Fowler was later awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on nucleosynthesis, and expressed surprise that Margaret Burbidge was not included.

Margaret Burbidge's application was again refused on gender grounds, so the couple swapped applications.

Geoff won the position at Mount Wilson, while Margaret Burbidge took the Caltech job in 1955.

In reality, Geoff worked in the photographic dark room while Margaret Burbidge operated the telescope.

Margaret Burbidge joined the University of California San Diego in 1962.

Margaret Burbidge was a supporter of the steady state theory of cosmology, but her own work on quasars helped to support the alternative Big Bang theory.

In 1972 Margaret Burbidge became director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory, on secondment from UCSD.

Margaret Burbidge left the RGO in 1974, fifteen months after joining, due to controversy over moving the Isaac Newton Telescope from RGO headquarters at Herstmonceux Castle to Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in the Canary Islands.

Margaret Burbidge campaigned in opposition to discrimination against women in astronomy and was opposed to positive discrimination.

Margaret Burbidge's letter declining the prize caused the AAS to set up its first committee on the status of women in astronomy.

Margaret Burbidge was the daughter of Marjorie Stott Peachey and Stanley John Peachey; her father was a lecturer in chemistry at the Manchester School of Technology and her mother was one of his students.