Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was a British-American astronomer and astrophysicist. In 1925, she became the first person to earn a PhD in astronomy from Radcliffe College at Harvard. In her doctoral thesis, Cecilia proposed that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. This theory was initially ridiculed and rejected by the astronomy community, which believed at the time that there was little difference between the substances of the Earth and the Sun. However, a few years later, a fellow astronomer praised her work, stating it was “the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy,” and scientists began to recognize its validity.

Cecilia continued to study the nature of the universe and taught others how to explore space as she did. In 1956, she became the first woman to attain a full professorship at Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. She steadily advanced through the ranks and eventually became Chair of the department, making her the first woman to head a department at Harvard.

Throughout her career, Cecilia tirelessly studied the stars, wrote countless works, and inspired others to join the field, always seeking new heights. She once said, “Your reward will be the widening of the horizon as you climb. And if you achieve that reward, you will ask no other.”