Nancy Roman was born in Nashville, Tennessee to a music teacher mother and geophysicist father, both of whom influenced her interest in science. Her father in particular introduced her to scientific concepts and skills, and, as reported by the University of Chicago Magazine, “said that I could not leave for college without knowing how to rewire a lamp.”
As a child her family moved frequently, and during a stay in Baltimore, Roman read every astronomy book in the pubic library, making up her mind to become an astronomer.
She encountered discouragement throughout her life, such as when she opted to study mathematics (for astronomy) instead of Latin in high school, as she recalled in a NASA oral history interview:
The guidance counselor looked at me. My memory of, visions of her, I’m sure is exaggerated, but she seemed about ten feet tall, looked down her nose at me. ‘What lady would take mathematics instead of Latin?’ which was about as obvious as you could get. [Laughter]”
She went to college at Swarthmore because it had a good astronomy department, but according to Roman, the dean of women urged women to major in “female-appropriate fields.” When Roman insisted on pursuing astronomy, she was sent to the head of that department, who was also “less than encouraging.” It wasn’t until she went to the University of Chicago and Yerkes Observatory in 1946 for graduate work that she finally felt accepted and that she was treated just like everybody else.
Nancy Grace Roman in 1948 at Yerkes Observatory
Upon graduating, she stayed on as a post-doc, instructor, and then assistant professor – the first woman on University of Chicago’s astronomy faculty. She also continued studying the stars. But she was only paid about two-thirds what the men at the comparable level received. The Chicago Magazine reports:
When she brought her concerns to the department chair, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, the Indian-born astrophysicist who went on to win a Nobel Prize, he told her, ‘We don’t discriminate against women. We can just get them for less.’”
Roman doubted she would ever get tenure, in spite of doing work considered to be “groundbreaking.” So when a fellow faculty member told Roman about a position at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C., she took it. The move meant, however, changing her specialization from optical astronomy to radio astronomy, a new field at the time. She was even expected (along with the others) to build her own equipment.
In 1958 NASA was formed, and much of the science part of NRL was transferred to it. Roman also transferred to NASA six months later, and moved into management.
Roman was the first Chief of Astronomy in NASA’s Office of Space Science, setting up the initial program; she was the first woman to hold an executive position at the space agency. She was chief of astronomy and solar physics at NASA from 1961 to 1963. She held various other positions in NASA, including Chief of Astronomy and Relativity.
Nancy Grace Roman at NASA
At NASA, Roman was instrumental in getting the Hubble Space Telescope off the ground. It was not easy to obtain approval for such a large amount of money from Congress. As Roman tells the story, Senator William Proxmire asked Roman why the average American taxpayer should want to pay for the Hubble. Her answer was that for the price of a night at the movies every taxpayer would receive fifteen years of exciting scientific results. She now says, “I don’t think my prediction was wrong.” She also points out:
I mean, when you look at the amount of money that’s going into astronomy, including both the space and ground-based program, which is very large by historical standards, and you compare that with the amount of money that’s going into, say, football or baseball or cigarettes or alcohol, it’s trivial. The question is which do you get more from, and I don’t know. It depends on who you are and what you want.”
The Hubble was launched into space in 1990 – 44 years after its earliest conception. This first large space-based optical telescope, the article in Chicago Magazine notes, “has helped determine the age of the universe, the identity of quasars, and the existence of dark energy. It remains one of NASA’s most successful and enduring missions.”
Roman finished her NASA career at Goddard Space Flight Center where she served as the manager of the Astronomical Data Center. After retiring from NASA in 1979, she continued working as a contractor at Goddard until around 1997. Since leaving, she did a variety of volunteer activities, including serving as secretary of the National Capital Astronomers, primarily an amateur organization.
Nancy Roman as a speaker for 2017 March for Science Earth Day
Roman received a number of awards including several honorary doctorates, an asteroid named in her honor, a NASA fellowship named for her, and being picked to be one of the “Women of NASA” LEGO figurines along with Margaret Hamilton, Mae Jemison, and Sally Ride.
Nancy Grace Roman in LEGO form
One last anecdote from Roman explains much of her life. While at Yerkes, she was babysitting for an observational astronomer. As she left, he said, “You could always tell an observer from a theorist. The theorist looks down. The observer looks up.” She relates, “I never noticed that but I realized at the time, yes, I always look up when I go out at night.”
Nancy Roman died on December 25, 2018, at the age of 93.
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