Maria Mitchell Association

CONTACT:

4 Vestal Street
Nantucket, MA 02554
508 228-9198
www.mmo.org

Janet Schulte, Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

The Maria Mitchell Association was founded in 1902 to honor Nantucket’s most distinguished native daughter (1819-1889) — America’s first professional woman scientist and college professor of astronomy (Vassar), discoverer of a comet (1847), and the first woman member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1848). The Association maintains Nantucket’s only natural history museum, aquarium, observatory, and science library, and one of its best-preserved historic homes. Its programs reach 14,000 children and adults annually. Its Observatory (MMO) began recording histories of variable stars in 1913, and today supports a nationally distinguished program of undergraduate research training with state-of-the-art data reduction funded by NSF, and Internet-linked by NASA to remote telescopes. Its Natural Science Program conducts Island-wide field research and education, and in 1996 completed a comprehensive Flora of Nantucket in cooperation with the Massachusetts Audubon Society and The Nature Conservancy. Since 1999, they have: added a visitors center, a second dome on the observatory, and a state-of-the-art aquarium on Nantucket Harbor; published a widely-sold Field Guide to the Marine Life of Nantucket; expanded all research and teaching activities; endowed two staff positions — education director and natural science director; and are acquiring a new 24” research telescope. Their “Women in Science” Award is generously funded by national foundations. In an ever-more affluent setting, this institution is gaining increased national recognition.

(1999: NATURE: Environmental Education)