By Christine Cole Catley

After her New Zealand upbringing and education Beatrice did her pioneering work in the US, into the origins of galaxies, the origins of the universe. She was a professor of Astronomy at Yale, and only 40 when she died of cancer in 1981.

Beatrice showed astronomers new ways of looking, and taught teachers new ways of teaching. These new ways endure.

A lover of nature and a conservationist who idealised New Zealand, she was also a musician, a feminist, a battler for zero population growth, and a champion for the oppressed. Like working mothers everywhere, she had to juggle childcare and the demands of her profession.

Her life is a classic study in the interaction of nature and nurture, genetics and environment. It is also an inspiring and unforgettable picture of a girl, determined to be a scientist, who grows up in provincial New Zealand and wins through to world renown.

Christine Cole Catley draws on many hundreds of personal letters to family, friends, scientific colleagues and students for her portrait of a great New Zealand scientist. For this biography she has also researched and interviewed in the US, UK, Europe, Venezuela, Australia and New Zealand, discovering Beatrice Hill Tinsley's enduring legacy.

Paperback - large format - 445 pages

Published 2006

Very good condition