
Beatrice Tinsley, Astronomer Who Saw the Course of the Universe - danso
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/obituaries/overlooked-beatrice-tinsley-astronomer.html
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danso
I was going to say that the most astonishing anecdote is in the lede, which
describes the time that Tinsley, as a 26-year-old, publicly rebutted "Allan
Sandage, arguably the most important astronomer in the world". But this was
even more striking to me:

> _But despite her rising prominence, she couldn’t find a job in Texas. She
> complained to her father that she felt “rejected and undervalued
> intellectually.”_

> _Reluctantly, she expanded her search and took a job at Yale, drawn by the
> chance to work with Larson. She divorced Brian Tinsley, from whom she had
> grown distant, and gave up custody of the children, leaving on Christmas,
> Larson said._

If she got a professorship at Yale (the article describes her as Yale's first
female astronomy professor), then she couldn't have been missing jobs for
being unqualified. And I'm assuming NASA had close ties with Texas academia,
and NASA itself wasn't new to female leaders (e.g. Margaret Hamilton of the
Apollo project). How unnecessarily tragic that her family had to deal with
such strife because a Texas institution didn't give her her earned respect.

Even worse, she put this emotional burden on herself:

> _It was a choice she later agonized over. When her cancer appeared, Larson
> said, she wondered if it was nature’s retribution for her being a bad
> mother._

edit: Some additional context: her husband, also a physicist, did get a job at
UT-Dallas, which is why she had moved there in the first place. Incidentally,
he is still alive and still working there, according to Wikipedia [0]. I don't
blame him for not being the one to sacrifice his career for family (assuming
Yale is as or more prestigious than UT). As infrequent as it is today for the
husband to do that, it must have been unthinkable back then.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Tinsley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Tinsley)

