Sidney C. Wolff

Sidney Carne Wolff (born 1941) is an American astrophysicist, researcher, public educator, and author. She is the first woman in the United States to head a major observatory, and she provided significant contributions to the construction of six telescopes. Wolff served as Director of the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO).

Early life Sidney Carne was born in Sioux City, Iowa in 1941 and is the oldest child of George Albert Carne and Ethel (Smith) Carne.

After graduating high school at the age of 17, she went on to study at Carleton College, a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. Though she considered a major in Latin, Wolff received a bachelor's degree in astronomy in 1962, and married Richard James Wolff that August.

Career

PhD and postdoctoral research The CFH telescope was built due to image clarity on the mountain and is the first telescope Wolff helped develop. After graduating, Wolff went on to earn her PhD in astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley in 1966. After earning her PhD, Wolff continued researching A stars and the nature of their magnetic fields and variability during her postdoctoral research which she began by commuting between the Lick Observatory at the University of California, Santa Cruz and Berkeley.

Leadership The WIYN observatory on Kitt Peak is renowned and partly developed by Wolff. Wolff's leadership experience began in 1976, when she began serving as the associate director of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii until 1983 and later became acting director until 1984. Later that year, Wolff left Hawaii as she was named Director of the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) in Tucson, Arizona until 1987. During her time at Kitt Peak, she contributed to the development of the WIYN 3.5-meter telescope. In 1985 and 1986, Wolff became the second woman to hold the position of President of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and again as President of the American Astronomical Society in 1992.

From 1992 to 1994, Wolff served as the first Director of the Gemini Project and played a major role in the proposal of the Gemini 8-Meter Telescopes Project. Wolff was also a former Organizing Committee Member of Commission 29 Stellar Spectra from 1982 to 1988 and a member of Division IV stars until 2012. Until 2015, Wolff was also a member of Commission 29 Stellar Spectra and Commission 36 Theory of Stellar Atmospheres. Wolff has also co-authored several proposals including a four volume proposal for the Gemini 8-Meter Telescope which took two years to complete.