Scottish honour for Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Jocelyn Bell Burnell elected president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh

The Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland’s national academy of science and the arts, has elected Jocelyn Bell Burnell as its first female president.  Jocelyn graduated in Natural Philosophy from the University of Glasgow in 1965 and then gained her PhD from Cambridge in 1969. From 1982-1991 she worked at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh.

She was clerk to Britain Yearly Meeting in 1995-1997. She delivered a Swarthmore Lecture under the title Broken for life at Yearly Meeting in Aberdeen in 1989.

Jocelyn was a doctoral student at Cambridge when she discovered the first pulsars – rapidly spinning neutron stars that are formed in supernova explosions. It was one of the most significant scientific discoveries of the late twentieth century.

She will take up the three-year post as president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, which received its royal charter in 1783, in October.

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