12 Facts About Nan Dieter-Conklin

Nan Dieter-Conklin, known as Nannielou Reier Hepburn Dieter Conklin, was an American radio astronomer.

Nan Dieter-Conklin attended Goucher College to study mathematics, but an astronomy course taught by Helen Dodson sparked her interest in that subject.

Nan Dieter-Conklin completed doctoral studies at Radcliffe College in 1958, using her own radio astronomy data in her dissertation on Galaxy M33.

Nan Dieter-Conklin's research involved the radio telescope at Harvard, and she took a Harvard course on variable stars from Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin.

Nan Dieter-Conklin was hired by the United States Naval Research Laboratory when it acquired a radio telescope.

Nan Dieter-Conklin published radio astronomy research on solar flares beginning in 1952, and is credited as "the first US woman radio astronomer" based on that work.

Nan Dieter-Conklin retired from Berkeley for health reasons in 1977, but continued to research and publish as she was able.

Nan Dieter-Conklin published a memoir, Two Paths to Heaven's Gate, in 2006.

Nan Dieter-Conklin was interviewed and photographed along with Vera Rubin and Paris Pismis as women astronomers attending the American Astronomical Society conference in Arizona in 1963.

Nan Dieter-Conklin gave an oral history interview at Berkeley in 1977, looking back on her education and career.

Nan Dieter-Conklin had two daughters, born in 1951 and 1958.

Nan Dieter-Conklin was widowed in 2002, and she died in Seattle in 2014, aged 88 years.