Ashley Yeager: The Brilliant Legacy of Astronomer Vera Rubin (#175)

Ashley Yeager is an associate editor at The Scientist. Previously,
she worked as a freelance writer, editor and multimedia producer,
and also at the Simons Foundation as a science writer, at Science
News as a web producer and at Duke University as a writer and
multimedia producer. She has an undergraduate degree in journalism
from the University of Tennessee and a master's in science writing
from MIT. She co-chairs the education committee of the National
Association of Science Writers. Twitter: @ashleyjyeager In Bright
Galaxies, Dark Matter, and Beyond, Ashley Jean Yeager tells the
story of Rubin's life and work, recounting her persistence despite
early dismissals of her work and widespread sexism in science.
Yeager describes Rubin's childhood fascination with stars, her
education at Vassar and Cornell, and her marriage to a fellow
scientist. At first, Rubin wasn't taken seriously; she was a
rarity, a woman in science, and her findings seemed almost
incredible. Some observatories in midcentury America restricted
women from using their large telescopes; Rubin was unable to
collect her own data until a decade after she had earned her PhD.
Still, she continued her groundbreaking work, driving a scientific
revolution. She received the National Medal of Science in 1993, but
never the Nobel Prize—perhaps overlooked because of her gender.
She's since been memorialized with a ridge on Mars, an asteroid, a
galaxy, and most recently, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory—the first
national observatory named after a woman. 00:00:00 Intro 00:03:57
Vera Rubin as a Scientist. 00:09:27 Contributions of the people
that supported Vera Rubin. 00:11:09 Vera Rubin during WWII 00:15:17
The rotational model of the universe. 00:18:57 The Vassar College
Plot! Did Vera "discover" dark matter first? 00:22:26 The methods
of Vera Rubin and her collaboration with Kent Ford 00:25:48 How did
Vera Rubin finall gain acceptance of the dark matter phenomenon?
00:34:50 Vera Rubin as an advocate for women in science. Support
our Sponsors LinkedIn Jobs! Use this link to post your first job ad
for FREE LinkedIn.com/impossible biOptimizers for better sleep
https://magbreakthrough.com/impossible Learn more about your ad
choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices