Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell is a distinguished Northern Irish physicist. She is most famous for discovering the first radio pulsars in 1967.

A pulsar is a rapidly rotating neutron star. These stars emit regular pulses of radio waves. Her discovery fundamentally changed our understanding of the universe. It revealed the existence of incredibly dense and active objects in deep space. Her career has spanned decades of leadership in many scientific organizations.

In 1967, Bell Burnell was a postgraduate student at the University of Cambridge. She helped construct the Interplanetary Scintillation Array to study quasars.

While examining chart-recorder papers, she noticed a strange "bit of scruff." This signal moved across the sky along with the stars. She spent three months checking data by hand to confirm it. She discovered the signal pulsed with great regularity. It occurred at a rate of about one pulse every 1.3 seconds. This source was temporarily called "Little Green Man 1" (LGM-1). It was eventually identified as the pulsar PSR B1919+21.

Bell Burnell's journey into science faced early obstacles. She grew up in Lurgan, Northern Ireland, in a home called "Solitude." Her father was an architect who helped design the Armagh Planetarium. These visits to the planetarium encouraged her interest in astronomy. At her school, girls were often expected to study subjects like cooking. They were not encouraged to study technical or scientific subjects. Her parents challenged these policies so she could study science. She later attended The Mount School in England. She earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of Glasgow in 1965. She completed her PhD at New Hall, Cambridge, in 1969.

Her discovery led to a significant controversy regarding the Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1974, the Nobel Prize was awarded for the discovery of pulsars. The prize went to Antony Hewish and Martin Ryle. Bell Burnell was not among the awardees. This decision remains a subject of debate in the scientific community today. Hewish was her thesis supervisor and the first author on the discovery paper. Bell Burnell had been persistent in reporting the anomaly despite skepticism. Some believed her status as a female graduate student affected her recognition. However, she later stated she did not believe research students should usually receive the prize.

Throughout her career, Bell Burnell has held many prestigious leadership roles. She served as president of the Royal Astronomical Society from 2002 to 2004. She was also president of the Institute of Physics from 2008 to 2010. She later became the Chancellor of the University of Dundee from 2018 to 2023. She has been a professor at the Open University and a visiting professor at Princeton University. Her expertise has made her a leading figure in global astrophysics.

In 2018, she received the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. This award included $3 million in prize money. Instead of keeping the money, she established a scholarship fund. The Bell Burnell Scholarship Fund helps female, minority, and refugee students. These students aim to become research physicists. The fund is administered by the Institute of Physics. This act demonstrates her commitment to increasing diversity in science. She wants to support the growth of scientific sectors by encouraging more women to participate.

Bell Burnell has received numerous other honors for her contributions to science. In 2021, she became the second woman to receive the Copley Medal. She was also awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 2015. In 2007, she was promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Her legacy is even reflected in biology, as a new species of nudibranch was named in her honor. Her life connects the history of radio astronomy to the modern movement for diversity in STEM. She remains a powerful example of how persistence and observation can change science forever.