Helen Sawyer Hogg Biography

Helen Sawyer Hogg (1905-1993) was one of the few women working as a professional astronomer during the first half of the 20th century. Making a career out of studying the variable stars of global star clusters outlining the Milky Way Galaxy, Hogg photographed over 2,000 stars and published more than 200 papers. Although she was an American who studied at Harvard, she lived most of her life in Canada and spent most of her professional career working at the Dunlap Observatory in Toronto. Not only did Hogg have a strong reputation in academics, but she was also popular among the general public due to a weekly newspaper column she wrote to explain astronomical phenomena to lay people.

Early Education

Helen Battles Sawyer Hogg was born on August 1, 1905 in Lowell, Massachusetts. Her father, Edward Everett Sawyer, was a banker and her mother, Carrie Myra (Sprague) Sawyer, was a teacher....
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