Nancy Grace Roman was an American astronomer famously known as the Mother of Hubble, due to her efforts in making the Hubble Space Telescope a reality. She was the first Chief of Astronomy in the Office of Space Science at NASA and the first woman to hold an executive position at NASA. In her role, she successfully managed numerous astronomy-based projects.
Nancy Grace Roman was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1925. She obtained a degree in astronomy from Swathmore College in Pennsylvania in 1946, and then a doctorate in the same subject from the University of Chicago. In 1959, after working at the United States Research Laboratory, Roman joined National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
While at NASA, Roman proposed that detecting planets around other stars might be possible using space-based telescope, and even suggested a technique to build such a telescope. This laid the foundation for the building of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Throughout her career, Roman was an active public speaker and educator, and an advocate for women in the sciences. Before joining NASA, Roman had discovered that stars made of hydrogen and helium move faster than stars composed of other heavier elements.
Roman’s other observations and discoveries about stars and structure of the galaxy provided the first clue to its formation and laid the foundation for late work. In May 2020, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope was renamed the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in recognition of her enduring contributions to astronomy.
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