Edith Jones Woodward

Edith Jones was born in Waldron, Indiana,[1] the daughter of James Raymond Jones and Mary "Madge" Yeager Jones. She attended Purdue University, earning a bachelor's of science in 1935. She won the Flora Roberts Medal as "outstanding senior woman" in her class at Purdue.[2][3] She earned a PhD in astronomy from Harvard University in 1941, where she held a Pickering Fellowship in 1936[4] and worked with Harlow Shapley and Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin.[5][1]

Edith Jones Woodward taught astronomy, mathematics, and geology for more than 40 years, at Mount Holyoke College (1938 to 1940), Hunter College (1951 to 1952), and as a professor at William Paterson College (1959 to 1983).[2] She also taught math to high school students, from 1956 to 1959,[6] and astronomy at National Science Foundations summer programs for teachers in 1961,[7] and for selected high school students in 1964.[8] Based on her teaching experience, she published a textbook, Elementary Concepts of Sets (1959), and addressed the 1960 meeting of the Science-Mathematics Society of New Jersey.[9]

She attended the American Astronomical Society meeting in 1974, in Gainesville, Florida.[10] From 1973 to 1975, she held a grant from the National Science Foundation for research at Kitt Peak National Observatory. During that work, she also traveled to Chile three times for NASA, to visit Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. In 1980 she won a NASA grant to fund work at the Harvard College Observatory on projects involving eclipses of binary stars.[11]

Woodward was active for many years in the League of Women Voters and the American Association of University Women.[12] In 1972, she was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention.[13][14] She was also a serious bridge player, and the first woman to win the President's Trophy in a bridge tournament at the Harvard Club of New York.[15]

Woodward's scientific publications included "A study of four W Ursae Majoris stars" (Harvard College Observatory Circular 1942),[16] "A photometric analysis of the supergiant close binary V453 Scorpii" (Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 1975, with Robert H. Koch),[17] "AK Herculis — An atypical W UMa-type system" (Astrophysics and Space Science 1977, with R. E. Wilson),[18] "U, B, V light curves of CO Lacertae" (Astrophysics and Space Science 1983, with R. E. Wilson),[19] "Old and new observations of V523 Saggitarii" (Astronomical Journal 1989, with Robert H. Koch),[20] and "Analyses of photoelectric light curves of YY Sagittarii" (Astronomical Journal 1992, with Robert H. Koch).[21]

Edith Jones married William Redin Woodward, a patent attorney, in 1940. They had three children, James, Barbara, and Paul. Edith J. Woodward died in 2002, aged 87 years. Her elder son James F. Woodward became a historian of science and an adjunct physics professor at California State University, Fullerton. Her younger son Paul R. Woodward became a mathematician and astrophysicist who taught at the University of Minnesota.[22][23] The American Astronomical Society presents an Edith J. Woodward Award, named in her memory.[24]