page_title: Phoebe Waterman Haas
section_title: Education and early work
hierarchical_section_title: Phoebe Waterman Haas / Life / Education and early work
caption_attribution_description: English: "The Star-Spectroscope of the Lick Observatory" designed by James Keeler and constructed by John Brashear. From: "Treatise on Astronomical Spectroscopy: Being a Translation of Die Spectralanalysis Der Gestirne" by Julius Scheiner and translated by E. B. Frost.
context_page_description: Phoebe Waterman Haas was one of the earliest American women to be awarded a doctorate in Astronomy. While her formal professional career ended upon her marriage, she contributed as a citizen scientist, volunteering for the American Association of Variable Star Observers. The Phoebe Waterman Haas Public Observatory was supported by donations from her family and is named in her honor.
context_section_description: Phoebe Waterman moved from North Dakota to New York to study at Vassar College, a university for women, where she received a BA degree in 1904. Two years later she earned a master's degree in Mathematics and Astronomy, working with Caroline E. Furness.
  At the time, the accepted way for a woman to be professionally involved in the field of astronomy was to be a "computer", performing data analysis and making calculations. As a computer at Mount Wilson Observatory from 1909 to 1911, Phoebe worked with leading astronomers such as George Ellery Hale, Walter S. Adams, Jacobus Kapteyn, and Harold D. Babcock.  She was involved in  classification and reduction of spectra and measurement of laboratory spectra. She also studied the rotation of the Sun.
  Phoebe wanted to be a full professional research astronomer, making her own observations as well as doing analyses. In 1911 she applied to the University of California-Berkeley to a doctorate program. She was accepted and was able to make observations at Lick Observatory in San José, using the Brashear spectrograph on the 36-inch refractor for her research.  She was awarded a doctorate of philosophy in Astronomy on May 14, 1913,. Her thesis title was "The Visual Region of the Spectrum of the Brighter Class A Stars." She was the first women in earn a doctorate in astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley. (Waterman's dissertation was published before that of her classmate, Anna Estelle Glancy, who was awarded her degree on the same day.)
caption: Star Spectroscope, Lick Observatory, constructed by Brashear, 1898
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