Ann Merchant Boesgaard


Ann Merchant Boesgaard is an astronomer and professor who received the American Astronomical Society's highest award, the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship in 2019. The minor planet 7804 Boesgaard is named after her, the name having been proposed by Dutch astronomers C.J. van Houten and Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld.
Boesgaard received her bachelor's degree Magna cum Laude in 1961 from Mount Holyoke College, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1966. She subsequently became a professor at the University of Hawaii.