Debra Meloy Elmegreen

I've been a professor of astronomy at Vassar College since 1985, after college at Princeton and a PhD at Harvard. I retired in June 2022. I was a postdoc at Carnegie Observatories (Palomar). I've traveled worldwide for conferences and observatories, but mostly observe now with the Hubble and Webb Space Telescopes to study the structure and evolution of galaxies. I'm President of the International Astronomical Union. My husband is also an astronomer, at IBM. My children and 2 grandchildren are my greatest joys.

Science Club adventures filled my time at WTW: fall festival floats, the geodesic dome greenhouse we built that was destroyed by a big storm, the star parties we had with the telescope the club built, club trips to NASA and to Wallops Island for a launch. I was very engaged with science fairs, so it's no surprise I'm still doing astronomy. My fondest classroom memories are of Mr. Otten and Mrs. Opp, two very inspirational people in my life.