Nancy Boggess | |
---|---|
Alma mater | University of Michigan |
Scientific career | |
Thesis | The structure of NGC 6822 (1967) |
Nancy Elizabeth Weber Boggess (1925 – 2019) was an astrophysicist known for her work in developing telescopes that were used in space by NASA.
Boggess was born in 1925.[1] She attended Wheaton College in Massachusetts where she earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and music. She then earned her master's degree in mathematics from Wellesley College. Boggess completed her education at the University of Michigan with a PhD in astronomy.[2]
Boggess went on to join NASA in 1968[3][4] after Nancy Roman heard Boggess speak at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society and offered Boggess a job.[5][6]: 92 Boggess oversaw grant programs at NASA,[6]: 118–122 including serving as a NASA project scientist[7] for the development and launch of Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), which was able to map the entire night sky in the infrared spectrum.[8][6]: 125, 127, 174, 182 From 1983 until 1984 Boggess worked on the coordinating the development of the Spitzer Space Telescope.[9][10][11] Boggess was the project scientist[12] for the team that developed the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE)[13][6]: 200, 205, 234, 255, 269 which earned a Nobel Prize for John C. Mather and George Smoot in Physics in 2006.[14] Under Boggess' guidance, COBE was a combination of multiple instruments that made precise measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation that was left over from the Big Bang.[15][16]
When Boggess retired, she spent time documenting the migration of birds.[2] Boggess died in 2019.[1]
In 1997 Wheaton College awarded Boggess with an honorary degree.[17] In 2006 Boggess was among the team members who received the Gruber Prize in Cosmology for their work on COBE.[18][19]