Anne Pyne Cowley '59

Alumnae Achievement Awards 1986

Astronomer, Professor 

Anne P. Cowley, a professor of astronomy, graduated from Wellesley College in 1959. Her interest in astronomy began at Wellesley when she took an introductory astronomy course to fulfill a distribution requirement. From that course, her passion for astronomy developed, and after graduation, she pursued her M.A. and Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Michigan. There, she met and married fellow astronomer Charles R. Cowley.

After receiving her Ph.D., Professor Cowley worked as a research associate at the University of Chicago until 1967 and as a research scientist at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor until 1983. In 1983, Professor Cowley and her colleagues confirmed the existence of a stellar black hole outside the Milky Way galaxy. The discovery has furthered the study of the endpoint of stellar evolution.

In 1983, Professor Cowley moved to Arizona to serve as a professor in the department of astronomy and physics at Arizona State University. She has since continued her research on astronomical spectroscopy and the evolution of stars. Professor Cowley is a member of the International Astronomical Union, the American Astronomical Society, and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. She has also served as an editor for the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the Annual Review of Astronomy & Astrophysics, and the Astrophysical Journal.

Professor Cowley is currently a professor emeritus at Arizona State University. She has two sons.