Deborah Shapley had a distinguished 30-year career as a journalist, serving as a reporter for the weekly journal, Science, and as the Washington Bureau Chief for Nature. She is the author of four books, the best known of which is Promise and Power: the Life and Times of Robert McNamara, published on Little Brown in 1993. She is the granddaughter of Harlow and Martha Shapley and is the writer, editor and publisher of the online blog Harlow Shapley Project. 

I found Deborah’s recent post about her grandmother entitled, Martha Shapley, astronomer, fascinating. Martha was a very able mathematician who was instrumental in her husband’s early work on galactic structure and also published papers on her own.  But her career was sidelined by the pressures of having five children and supporting her husband’s role as Director of the Harvard Observatory. Martha Shapley’s work and the legacy of women astronomers is the topic of this episode of The Interviews. 

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