The British astronomer Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered pulsars while completing her PhD at Cambridge University in the late 1960s. Using a radio telescope designed by her advisor Anthony Hewish and Martin Ryle (both men later shared a Nobel prize for their work), Bell Burnell found strange radio pulses coming from a single point in the sky.
After a period of confusion about what was causing the pulses, Bell Burnell and her colleagues confirmed that pulsars, as the sources of pulses came to be known, are emitted by rapidly spinning neutron stars
After finishing her PhD, she worked at the University of Southampton (1968-73), University College London (1974-82) and the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh (1982-91). From 1991 to 2001 she was Professor of Physics at the Open University. She was President of the Royal Astronomical Society between 2002 and 2004 and is the present President of the Institute of Physics, the first woman to hold the post. She has campaigned to improve the status and number of women in the fields of physics and astronomy.
She has been an active Quaker since her schooldays, and her distinguished academic career has never prevented her serving the Society of Friends in many capacities. She was Clerk to Britain Yearly Meeting in 1995, 1996 and 1997. She delivered a Swarthmore Lecture under the title Broken for life at Yearly Meeting in Aberdeen in 1989. She served on the Quaker Peace and Social Witness Testimonies Committee, which produced Engaging with the Quaker Testimonies: a Toolkit (2007), for which she wrote the introductory essay. In August 2007, she was appointed Clerk of the Central Executive Committee of Friends World Committee for Consultation for 2008–12.
Listen to a 12 minute program from "The New Elizabethans" about her and her pioneering work:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01l8n6y
Breaking news: Prof. Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell DBE FRS FRSE, astrophysicist and former President of the Royal Astronomical Society, has become the first female President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE). She was overwhelmingly elected by RSE members and took up the post in October 2014.
After a period of confusion about what was causing the pulses, Bell Burnell and her colleagues confirmed that pulsars, as the sources of pulses came to be known, are emitted by rapidly spinning neutron stars
After finishing her PhD, she worked at the University of Southampton (1968-73), University College London (1974-82) and the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh (1982-91). From 1991 to 2001 she was Professor of Physics at the Open University. She was President of the Royal Astronomical Society between 2002 and 2004 and is the present President of the Institute of Physics, the first woman to hold the post. She has campaigned to improve the status and number of women in the fields of physics and astronomy.
She has been an active Quaker since her schooldays, and her distinguished academic career has never prevented her serving the Society of Friends in many capacities. She was Clerk to Britain Yearly Meeting in 1995, 1996 and 1997. She delivered a Swarthmore Lecture under the title Broken for life at Yearly Meeting in Aberdeen in 1989. She served on the Quaker Peace and Social Witness Testimonies Committee, which produced Engaging with the Quaker Testimonies: a Toolkit (2007), for which she wrote the introductory essay. In August 2007, she was appointed Clerk of the Central Executive Committee of Friends World Committee for Consultation for 2008–12.
Listen to a 12 minute program from "The New Elizabethans" about her and her pioneering work:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01l8n6y
Breaking news: Prof. Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell DBE FRS FRSE, astrophysicist and former President of the Royal Astronomical Society, has become the first female President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE). She was overwhelmingly elected by RSE members and took up the post in October 2014.