Niels Bohr Library & Archives

In January 1978, American Astronomical Society President Margaret Burbidge made what seemed like a routine announcement: the AAS would no longer hold meetings in states that had not ratified the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Instead, the decision sparked months of controversy, including accusations of misconduct, threats of mass resignations, and even an ultimatum involving the IRS.

When this project began, SPS intern Amelie Heying expected a small but fun dive into archival records, but it quickly became clear that the ERA boycott was one of the most dramatic episodes in the Society's history.

The archives offer a fascinating look at how questions of equity, governance, and professional responsibility shaped the scientific community in the late 1970s.

Read the full story here:

Equal Rights Amendment Controversy in the American Astronomical Society How the Women’s Rights Movement Collided with the AAS

K. Renee Horton is a physicist and engineer whose career spans materials science, physics, aerospace, and advocacy for disability inclusion in STEM. As a Black woman with hearing loss, she has spoken openly about the barriers disabled scientists can face—and about the importance of making space where more people can thrive.

In 2024, NBLA's intern, Kai Hostetter-Habib, conducted an oral history interview with Dr. Horton. In it, she reflects on her early childhood growing up in Louisiana, her hearing loss diagnosis, and how that impacted the trajectory of her life. She discusses her experience as a non-traditional student, going back to college after a ten-year break with three children, and the racism she dealt with in the South. She recounts how she got involved with the National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP) and her two-year tenure as NSBP president from 2016 to 2018. Dr. Horton also goes through her career progression at NASA, from material test engineer to the Space Launch Systems quality engineer to Airworthiness Deputy. She concludes by talking about her disability rights advocacy, her mentoring, the children's books she authored, and the importance of her family.

Read about Kai's experience talking to Dr. Horton: https://www.aip.org/library/the-power-of-oral-histories

📷 NASA - Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.

Abraham Nemeth was a mathematician whose work transformed access to science and mathematics for blind students and researchers. Best known for developing the Nemeth Braille Code for mathematics and science notation, he helped open technical fields to countless learners. Not every scientific breakthrough comes from a lab bench; some reshape who gets to enter the lab in the first place.

📷 University of Detroit

18th century astronomer John Goodricke is best known for his observations of the variable star Algol. He was the first to offer a mechanism to explain why stars vary in apparent magnitude, suggesting that Algol is what is now known as an eclipsing binary.

Goodricke was also deaf. His work reminds us that disabled scientists have always been part of scientific discovery, even when the historical record ignores them.

📷 James Scouler - Original pastel in the possession of the Royal Astronomical Society London; see the Science Photo Library. Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.

Carl A. Rouse would have been 100 years old 🎂

A physicist and solar researcher whose career broke barriers, Rouse was the first African American to earn a PhD in physics from (1956). His love of science was spurred by an interest in photography and model airplanes as a child, and he gravitated towards physics in high school. He entered the Army Training Reserves after high school, which sent him to to complete a civil engineering course. When he later had the choice to continue towards an engineering degree or pivot to physics, he chose to start over at Case Institute of Technology as a physics student.

After his PhD, Rouse headed to to work in the Theoretical Division, where he began his research on his "High-Z" model of the sun, a project he worked on through his career. He later moved to in San Diego, CA, where he was eventually granted access to to continue his research. He was elected as an APS Fellow in 1968.

After his passing, Rouse’s impact continued through the Carl Rouse Fellowship, established by and Caltech to support undergraduate research, especially in astrophysics and gravitational-wave science.

Dr. Ronald Mickens collected biographical materials on Rouse for the 1998 exhibit “The African American Presence in Physics.” These materials, which include a 17-page autobiographical reflection written by Rouse, are now digitized and available on our repository. Check them out: https://bit.ly/4uYy1lH

📷 Lorraine Moxley-Rouse and Carl Rouse in at home in Del Mar, California. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Gift of Dr. Rouse

📷 Dr. Carl A. Rouse at his home office, seated in front of the PC he uses to access the CRAY T90 at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Ronald E. Mickens Collection

In celebration of Disability Pride Month, our July Photos of the Month looks at the remarkable life of Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin through images from the Emilio Segrè Visual Archives. Hodgkin was a Nobel Prize-winning crystallographer who used X-ray techniques to reveal the structures of molecules such as penicillin, vitamin B12, and insulin. She also lived for most of her adult life with rheumatoid arthritis, which began when she was only 24. Over time, the disease affected her hands and feet, limiting her mobility and causing chronic pain, but it did not keep her from her research or from teaching, traveling, organizing, and mentoring.

Read the full post on the Ex Libris Universum blog:

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin July Photos of the Month

Meet Wanda Díaz-Merced, an astronomer who has advanced the use of sonification—turning data into sound—to study the cosmos.

Díaz-Merced began losing her sight as a young person, and she eventually faced a crossroads between dropping out of her program due to her vision impairment or persevering. She (obviously) chose the latter, and when a friend introduced her to an audio recording of a sunburst, she saw her path. She developed and tested sonification software to enable her to participate in science and found that it could be used to improve the work of seeing scientists as well.

As usual, an “accommodation” ended up benefiting more than those it was designed for. Since then, Díaz-Merced has advocated for sonification and become a champion for equity of access in astronomy.

📷 By IAU/M. Zamani. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Particle physicist Bibha Chowdhuri was born in 1913. She was one of the earliest women in particle physics in India and her foundational research on cosmic rays helped lay groundwork for the study of mesons.

Chowdhuri studied physics at Rajabazar Science College of Calcutta University and received her https://bit.ly/3KPIcVK. degree in 1936 – the only woman in her group. After graduating, she joined the Bose Institute, where she worked with Debendra Mohan Bose before heading to the University of Manchester for her PhD on cosmic rays. Her thesis investigated extensive air showers.

After her PhD, she returned to India to work at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. She also worked at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, the Physical Research Lab in Ahmedabad, the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics in Kolkata, and was briefly a visiting researcher at the University of Michigan. She continued to publish until her death in 1991.

Chowdhuri is one of the women highlighted in Shohini Ghose’s 2023 book, "Her Space, Her Time: How Trailblazing Women Scientists Decoded the Hidden Universe." AIP’s recently interviewed Ghose about the project – check it out: https://bit.ly/3T9t8ZM

📷 Unknown, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.

July is , so we’re celebrating physicists whose work expands both our understanding of the universe and our sense of who belongs in science. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is a theoretical cosmologist and particle physicist whose research explores dark matter, axions, and the early universe. She has also been dealing with chronic pain and PTSD since she was 19. Throughout, she has written and spoken powerfully about equity, access, and the human dimensions of scientific life.

Dr. Prescod-Weinstein received the 2021 Edward A. Bouchet Award from .physics, in recognition of her "contributions to theoretical cosmology and particle physics, ranging from axion physics to models of inflation to alternative models of dark energy, for tireless efforts in increasing inclusivity in physics, and for co-creating the Particles for Justice movement."

Her new book, “The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry and the Cosmic Dream Boogie,” is out now.

📷 Chanda Prescod-Weinstein gives the plenary talk at the 241st meeting in Seattle, January 2023. © CorporateEventImages/Todd Buchanan 2023, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.