Phoebe Waterman Haas (1882-1967)
Dee Sharples
Phoebe Waterman Haas received a master’s degree from
Vassar College in 1906 and became a computer at Mount
Wilson Observatory. She was the first woman to complete
work on a PhD in Astronomy (1913) at the University of
California-Berkeley/Lick Observatory. Haas submitted 338
observations to AAVSO between 1928 and 1933. More
importantly, when Harvard curtailed its financial support of
AAVSO in 1953, Haas provided vital support to Margaret Mayall by calculating the five
or ten day means for southern variable stars. Continuing this work for more than ten
years, her data formed the basis for light curves published by AAVSO.