Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Science Achievement Graduate Scholarship in Astronomy and Astrophysics

Andrea Lin, graduate student in astronomy and astrophysics, is interested in exoplanets and astronomical instruments and plans to get involved in science outreach and teaching. Lin has given several research presentations since 2016 and used her knowledge of astronomy to work as a telescope operator at the University of Michigan. Her nominators said she has the “talents and the focus to become an excellent scientist” and “an intellectual leader in her graduate program.” Lin earned bachelor’s degrees in astronomy and astrophysics and in physics at the University of Michigan.

The scholarship in astronomy is named for Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, who is most well known for her discovery that stars are made mainly of hydrogen and helium, a finding that contradicted the accepted paradigm at the time. She also determined that stars could be classified according to their temperature and was the first woman to be promoted to full professor in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1954.