Elizabeth Roemer papers

Elizabeth Roemer (1929-2016), University of Arizona Professor Emerita of Astronomy and member of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory specializing in comets and asteroids is noted as the recoverer of lost comets, calculating the return of 79 periodic comets while also computing the orbits of comets and minor planets. Romer specialized in the study of "astrometry" for which she made precise measurements of the movements and positions of celestial bodies. Her observations led to numerous significant cometary discoveries. She discovered the asteroids "1930 Lucifer" (1964) and "1983 Bok" (1975) and was a co-discoverer of Themisto, one of Jupiter's moons. Elizabeth Roemer was born in Oakland, California and raised in Alameda, California, where she was valedictorian of her 1946 high school class and winner of the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1950 with a B.A. in astronomy as a Bertha Dolbeer Scholar. While completing her graduate studies at Berkeley she taught adult extension classes in Oakland and worked as an assistant astronomer and lab technician at University of California's Lick Observatory. After earning her Ph.D. in 1955, she continued working at University of California Berkeley as an assistant astronomer and also conducted research at the University of Chicago's Yerkes Observatory. In 1957 Roemer became an astronomer at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. It was there that she gained traction for rediscovering comets by using a high definition 40-inch atmospheric reflecting telescope to photograph and analyze comet nuclei. By 1965, Roemer was named acting director and had an asteroid named "1657 Roemera" (1961) in her honor. She was hired by the University of Arizona in Tucson as an Associate Professor in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in 1966 and was promoted to full professor in 1969. She headed the committee in 1972 that set up UA's Department of Planetary Sciences. Beginning in 1980, while remaining a UA professor, Pat served as an astronomer at Tucson's Steward Observatory. She retired in 1998, but continued her research on comets and asteroids. Roemer served as president and vice president of the International Astronomical Union's Commission 6 and vice president of its Commission 20. She also served as chairman of the American Astronomical Society's Division on Dynamical Astronomy. In addition to her leadership in the field, she received numerous awards for her groundbreaking work; among those were the BA Gould Prize of the National Academy of Sciences, the NASA Special Award, and the Donohoe Lectureship of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.