AKA Antonia Caetana de Paiva Pereira Maury

Born: 21-Mar-1866
Birthplace: Cold Spring, NY
Died: 8-Jan-1952
Location of death: Dobbs Ferry, NY
Cause of death: unspecified

Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: Hispanic
Occupation: Astronomer

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Stellar classification

Antonia Maury was the granddaughter of astronomer John William Draper and niece of astronomer Henry Draper, and she shared her family's fascination with the heavens. She studied at Vassar under Maria Mitchell, and joined Edward Charles Pickering's Draper Catalog project in 1888, working with Annie Jump Cannon and Henrietta Swan Leavitt at Harvard Observatory. Assigned to catalogue and calculate stellar spectra for stars in the northern hemisphere, she devised improvements to the stellar classification system to account for the varying temperatures and spectral lines of stars, and distinguishing between giant and dwarf stars. Her more distant relatives included the oceanographer Matthew Fontaine Maury.

Father: Mytton Maury (Christian minister)
Mother: Virginia Draper Maury

    University: BA, Vassar College (1887)
    Scholar: Harvard College Observatory, Harvard University (1888-91, 1893-1935)
    Teacher: Cambridge School, Cambridge, MA (1891-95)

    Portuguese Ancestry

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