{"id":48347,"date":"2025-03-04T10:59:50","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T15:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/?p=48347"},"modified":"2025-03-04T11:43:12","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T16:43:12","slug":"rubin-coin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/rubin-coin\/","title":{"rendered":"Barrier-Breaking Astronomer Graces a U.S. Quarter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Immortalized in a series honoring notable women, Vera Cooper Rubin, MS \u201951, is the first Cornellian ever featured on a coin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Joe Wilensky<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pioneering Cornellians often make change\u2014but for the first time, you\u2019ll find a Cornellian on<\/em> your change! Vera Cooper Rubin, MS \u201951<\/a>, a groundbreaking astronomer whose life\u2019s work included procuring the scientific evidence to prove the existence of dark matter, is being featured in the 2025 cohort of the American Women Quarters Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

According to Big Red history expert Corey Ryan Earle \u201907, it\u2019s believed to be the first time a Cornellian has ever been depicted on a circulating U.S. coin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The program, which the U.S. Mint launched in 2022 in partnership with the Smithsonian American Women\u2019s History Museum, has honored five women annually with individual designs on the reverse side of the quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Past honorees include poet Maya Angelou, pilot Bessie Coleman, musician Celia Cruz, astronaut Sally Ride, former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, surgeon Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, and early film star Anna May Wong.<\/p>\n<\/div>

\"Portrait
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution<\/figcaption>
Rubin\u2019s official portrait in the Smithsonian.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Rubin\u2019s fellow honorees for 2025\u2014the program\u2019s final year\u2014are athlete Althea Gibson, Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low, disabilities activist Stacey Park Milbern, and journalist and suffragist Ida B. Wells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The five designs will be circulated throughout the country over the next several months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeing featured on a U.S. quarter is a big deal,\u201d says Jay Beeton \u201970, BS \u201971, former director of the American Numismatic Association\u2019s Money Museum in Colorado Springs, CO. \u201cThat\u2019s an honor largely reserved for U.S. presidents, or iconic images.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Vera
Carnegie Institution for Science Archives<\/figcaption>
Using an image tube spectrograph on a telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

And, he notes, prior to the launch of the quarters program in 2022, only three women\u2014Susan B. Anthony, Helen Keller, and Sacagawea\u2014had ever been featured on circulating (non-commemorative) coins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cStanding Liberty\u201d quarter, produced from 1916\u201330, did depict a female figure, albeit allegorical. As Earle notes, it has its own Cornell connection: it was designed by Hermon Atkins MacNeil, who taught industrial arts on the Hill in the 1880s and sculpted the Ezra statue on the Arts Quad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Being featured on a U.S. quarter is a big deal. That\u2019s an honor largely reserved for U.S. presidents, or iconic images.<\/p>\nJay Beeton \u201970, BS \u201971<\/strong>, former director of the American Numismatic Association Money Museum<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The 2025 quarter also means that Rubin \u201cbecomes the only astronomer ever featured on a U.S. circulating coin\u2014what an amazing honor,\u201d Beeton says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rubin, who died in 2016<\/a> at age 88, faced pervasive sexism and initial dismissals of her research. But she gathered decades of data on the unseen material that binds galaxies and governs their rotation\u2014and which is believed to make up more than 80% of the universe\u2019s mass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Vera
Carnegie Institution for Science Archives<\/figcaption>
Receiving the National Medal of Science from President Bill Clinton and VP Al Gore in 1993.
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 1985, the body of work she presented to the International Astronomical Union fundamentally shifted scientific conceptions of the universe and opened new directions for research in both astronomy and physics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She went on to win both the U.S. National Medal of Science and the Gold Medal from the U.K.\u2019s Royal Astronomical Society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is no problem in science that can be solved by a man,\u201d Rubin once wrote, \u201cthat cannot be solved by a woman.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top: Quarter design courtesy of the U.S. Mint.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Published March 4, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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