Virginia L Trimble

Virginia Trimble is the oldest faculty member of the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of California, Irvine and is an honorary staff member of the Queen Jadwiga Observatory in Rzepiennik Biskupi, Poland. Her 1968 PhD in astronomy came from the California Institute of Technology, and she holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Valencia, Spain. Her current research interests include the structure and evolution of stars, galaxies, and the Universe, and of the communities of scientists who study them. She is a fellow of the American Physical Society, Sigma Xi, the American Astronomical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2014 the APS awarded her its Abraham Pais Prize in History of Physics. She has held governance positions in most of those societies and some others (typically topping out at the level of Vice President), and is the only person ever to have been President of two different divisions of the international Astronomical Union (Galaxies and the Universe, and Union-Wide Affairs). She still teaches, most recently Physics of Music, General Relativity and Black Holes, and the Impact of World War II on the Sciences, and would like very much to learn whatever you know that she doesn't (yet)!