Edith E.
Cummings

BIO:

After graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1915 from the University of Nebraska, Edith Cummings would go on to receive her master’s degree in astronomy at the University of California Berkeley in 1917. While at UC Berkeley she conducted research under Professor Robert Horace Baker, under whom she wrote her master thesis “The eclipsing binary TV Cassiopeia,” which was published in the Laws Observatory journal in 1918.  

Edith Cummings was an exceptional student and astronomer who was awarded the Laws Astronomy Medal in 1916. Though she was recognized as a gifted student, her sex was spoken of as a drawback. Baker wrote in his recommendation letter for graduate school: “As an undergraduate Miss Cummings was the most promising student I have had…while unfortunately she is not a man, I believe she is hampered by her sex less than any aspirant I have known. In our extrafocal work she has done a man’s share. She has unlimited energy, health, and strength to accompany it. She intends to make astronomy her life’s work.”   

Cummings continued her education at UC Berkeley, earning a PhD in astronomy in 1923. During her graduate years, she would spend much of her time at the Lick Observatory in the mountains east of San José. Cummings built a photoelectric photometer—an early and innovative application of electronic light detection—which she used with the observatory’s 12-inch refracting telescope to measure the intensity of starlight. Instrument design and hands-on observing were both unusual occupations for a woman at the time; Cummings excelled at both. Her doctoral dissertation “The Photoelectric Photometer of the Lick Observatory and Some Results Obtained with it.” was published in 1924 in the Lick Observatory Bulletin.   

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