Andrea Dupree is a senior astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian. She is a Past-President of the

American Astronomical Society The American Astronomical Society (AAS, sometimes spoken as "double-A-S") is an American society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The primary objective of the AAS is to promote the adv ...

, and served as the associate director of the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian. Dupree also served as Head of the Solar, Stellar and Planetary Sciences Division.

Early life

Andrea Kundsin Dupree was born September 17, 1939, to parents Edwin and Ruth. She is the oldest sibling with a younger brother, Dennis Edwin Kundsin.

Education and career

Dupree attended

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a Private university, private Women's colleges in the United States, historically women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henr ...

and graduated with her bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts in 1956. She knew she wanted to go in to the sciences, and her favorite subjects were Geology and Astronomy. In a 2007 interview, Dupree said, "I’m sure I would’ve been a geologist if the coin had ended up heads instead of tails." After graduating from Wellesley, Dupree briefly studied at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, before enrolling in graduate school at Radcliffe in 1961. The Radcliffe Graduate School merged with

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1963, and Dupree graduated with her PhD in astrophysics from Harvard in 1968. Her graduate thesis was titled ''Analysis of Emission Lines from the Solar Corona.'' Dupree has worked as an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian since 1968. In 1980, she became the first woman and youngest person to serve as the associate director of the Center for Astrophysics. From 1996 to 1998, she served as the President of the

. Dupree is an internationally recognized leader in stellar physics and the bulk of her research is on stars like our own

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

. Dupree recorded an oral history with the American Institute of Physics (AIP) in 2007. She was elected a Legacy Fellow of the

in 2020

Awards and honors

She received the Smithsonian Scholarly Studies Award in 2019 and 2020.

References

External links

Oral history interview transcript with Andrea Dupree on 29 October 2007, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dupree, Andrea 1939 births Living people American astrophysicists American women astrophysicists 21st-century American women scientists Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Fellows of the American Astronomical Society