Nancy Grace Roman: Excerpts—Roman’s Recollections Up to 1980

Article

“Nancy Grace Roman: Excerpts—Roman’s Recollections Up to 1980,” Interview by David DeVorkin
Published in Quest Volume: 32 #2 (2025)

Abstract

Nancy Grace Roman (1925–2018) was an astronomer who served as the first Chief of Astronomy Programs at NASA, the first woman to do so. Peter van de Kamp was her advisor at Swarthmore College, and her doctoral advisor at the Yerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago was the celebrated William W. Morgan, an expert in stellar spectra, which Roman took on for her thesis on a star cluster in Ursa Major, examining its dynamics and distance using spectra provided by Morgan. She completed it in 1949. After several years on the faculty and then at the Naval Research Laboratory, NASA hired her, where she spent the rest of her career. The astronomical community anointed her “Mother of Hubble” in 2020.

Citation

Roman, Nancy Grace. “Nancy Grace Roman: Excerpts—Roman’s Recollections Up to 1980.” Interview by David DeVorkin. Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly 32, no. 2 (2025): 41-50.