Short story about Beatrice Muriel Hill Tinsley

Beatrice Muriel Hill Tinsley (27 January 1941 – 23 March 1981) was a British-born New Zealand astronomer and cosmologist and professor of astronomy at Yale University, whose research made fundamental contributions to the astronomical understanding of how galaxies evolve, grow and die. Beatrice Hill Tinsley was born in 1941 in Chester, England, as the middle of three daughters of Jean and Edward Hill. The family emigrated to New Zealand following World War II, first living in Christchurch, and then for a longer time in New Plymouth, where her father, Edward Hill, was a clergyman, Moral Re-Armer, and later became the mayor (1953–56). Tinsley attended New Plymouth Girls' High School, then studied at the University of Canterbury where she completed a BSc and then a Master of Science degree in 1961, with First Class Honours in Physics. Her PhD was awarded by the University of Texas in Austin in 1966, with the thesis Evolution of Galaxies and its Significance for Cosmology. Tinsley completed pioneering theoretical studies of how populations of stars age and affect the observable qualities of galaxies. She also collaborated on basic research into models investigating whether the universe is closed or open. Her galaxy models led to the first approximation of what protogalaxies should look like. In 1974 she received the American Astronomical Society's Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy, awarded for "outstanding research and promise for future research by a postdoctoral woman researcher", in recognition of her work on galaxy evolution. In 1977, Tinsley, with Richard Larson of Yale, organised a conference on 'The Evolution of Galaxies and Stellar Populations'. Shortly after, in 1978, she became the first female professor of astronomy at Yale University. Her last scientific paper, submitted to The Astrophysical Journal ten days before her death, was published posthumously that November, without revision.

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