Ann Merchant Boesgaard, professor emerita of astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, has been awarded the 2019 Henry Norris Russell Leadership Award from the American Astronomical Society. Professor Boesgaard was honored at the society’s semi-annual meeting in Seattle on January 8. She received an engraved certificate, a monetary award, and the opportunity to deliver a lecture at next January’s winter meeting in Honolulu.
The Russell Prize is the society’s highest honored given each year to recognize a lifetime of achievement in astronomical research. Dr. Boesgaard was honored for her work on light-element abundances to test Big Bang nucleosynthesis and for her research on stellar structure and stellar evolution.
In accepting the award, Dr. Boesgaard noted that “my first paper was published in The Astrophysical Journal 54 years ago. There were many long nights at telescopes in the dark, freezing cold atop Mount Hamilton, Mount Wilson, and mostly Maunakea. This recognition of my research career is thrilling.”
Dr. Boesgaard joined the faculty at the University of Hawaii in 1967. She was promoted to associate professor in 1971 and to full professor in 1977. Professor Boesgaard is a magna cum laude graduate of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. She earned a Ph.D. in astronomy five years later at the University of California, Berkeley.