An Exhibition of the Development and Impact of Higher Education in Astronomy for Women at the University of Michigan
Helen (Walter) Dodson Prince
Ph.D. in Astronomy (1934)
Helen (Walter) Dodson Prince (born December 31, 1905 in Baltimore, Maryland-died February 4, 2002 in Arlington, Virginia) was a statistician, instructor, professor, and esteemed researcher of Astronomy. It was her research on solar flares that greatly contributed to making the McMath-Hulbert Observatory of the University of Michigan into “an international center of solar studies”(1). By the end of her career, she had published more than one hundred articles and received the Annie Jump Cannon Prize of the American Astronomical Society in 1954, the degree D. Sc. (honoris causa) from Goucher College, and the Faculty Distinguished Achievement Award in 1974.
Early Life & Education
Prince was born to Helen Falls Walter and Henry Clay Dodson in Baltimore, Maryland. Upon graduation from Western High School (2), she attended Goucher College with a full scholarship in Mathematics and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1927. It was due to the influence of her instructor, Professor Florence P. Lewis, that Helen Dodson Prince decided to pursue astronomy. Because of her interest in this field, Prince attended the University of Michigan and later continued for a graduate degree. In 1932, she received a Master of Arts and a research assistantship to advance towards a doctoral degree. In 1934, Prince earned a Ph.D. in Astronomy. Her dissertation published at this time was “A Study of the Spectrum of 25 Orionis”(3). The data for this study was obtained from 141 spectrograms taken at the Detroit Observatory (then called the University of Michigan Observatory) and six spectrograms from the Lick Observatory. It was completed with the guidance of fellow U-M Astronomer Dr. Dean B. Mclaughlin and Director of the Detroit Observatory Dr. Herber D. Curtis. She was under the Van Meter Fellowship granted by Goucher College at the time of the dissertation’s publication (4).
Early Career Path
Alongside her educational advancement, Dr. Prince also had a successful professional career. Directly upon graduating from Goucher College in 1927, Prince became an assistant statistician at the Maryland State Department of Education (2). From 1933 to 1945, she was an instructor and later assistant professor in the Astronomy department of Wellesley College.
Summer Travel
During the summer months of 1934 and 1935, Helen Dodson Prince spent her time in the Maria Mitchell Observatory on Nantucket Island. This was where she continued her studies on the star 25 Orionis. Specifically, she studied “the patterns of bands and lines that are observed when a star’s light is dispersed through a prism”(1). The data she used for this study came from 33 one-prism spectrograms taken at the Detroit Observatory (then called the University of Michigan Observatory) from 1933-1939 (5). In the summer months of 1938 and 1939, she was devoted to her research in the Observatoire de Paris, Section d’Astrophysique in Meudon, France. It was at this world center for observation and analysis of solar activity that she “developed her interest in the activities of the sun”(1). She then published the results of her observations in the Astrophysical Journal in 1940 (3). In 1943, Helen Dodson Prince moved to the MIT Radiation Laboratory for the three final years of World War II (1943-1945) to contribute to the mathematical development of radar. She then returned to Goucher College as an assistant professor of mathematics and astronomy. In 1947, she continued working part-time at Goucher and accepted a shared appointment at the University of Michigan’s McMath-Hulbert Observatory. There, she continued her solar flare research through “taking motion pictures of single spectral lines”(1). In 1950, she became an associate professor of Astronomy and worked full-time at the observatory.
Collaboration
In 1951, Helen Dodson Prince began collaborating with Canadian radio astronomer Arthur Covington to combine optical and radio studies. In order to better classify solar flares, Prince’s part in the work “focused on the occurrence of the flares and their effects on space and on the earth’s magnetic field” (1). This collaborative study lasted for more than 20 years.
Later Career Path
In 1956, Helen Dodson Prince married Edmond Lafayette Prince. The following year, she was promoted to the position of full-time Professor of Astronomy and, in 1962, Associate Director of the McMath-Hulbert Observatory (6). Her later articles on solar flares events were published jointly with colleague Ruth Herman and with founder of the McMath-Hulbert Observatory Robert McMath (3).
Retirement
Upon retiring from the University of Michigan in 1976, Helen Dodson Prince continued her work until 1979 at the observatory as a professor emerita (7). Even then, from 1979 to the year of her death in 2002, Prince remained an independent consultant for the Applied Physics Laboratory at John Hopkins University. Her memberships included being a fellow of the American Astronomical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Geophysical Union (3).
By the time of her death at the age of 96, Helen Dodson Prince had spent 50 years observing solar activity (3) and was known as “a pioneer in women’s rise in the profession of astronomy” and “a respected and revered educator of future astronomers” (8).