Emily Winterburn

Winterburn studied physics at the University of Manchester. She remained there to complete a Masters in the History of Science, focussing on Ernest Rutherford and the Manchester physics department between 1907 and 1919.[1]

Winterburn joined the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, as a curator looking after astrophysical objects from 1250 to the present day.[1] Whilst at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich Winterburn published The Astronomers Royal.[2] She appeared on Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time in 2007, discussing optics.[3] Alongside curating, Winterburn began a PhD at Imperial College London, studying the Herschel family.[1] In 2011 she submitted her PhD thesis The Herschels: a scientific family in Training.[4] Her thesis was well received by the historical science communities.[5] Winterburn writes for Astronomy Now.

In 2009 Winterburn joined the University of Leeds Museum of Science as a curator.[1] That year she published The Stargazer's Guide with the HarperCollins.[6] Winterburn is an expert on the Herschel family and Islamic astronomical instruments.[1] She won the 2014 Notes & Records of the Royal Society essay prize for her essay Philomaths, Herschel, and the myth of the self-taught man.[7] She was part of the 2015 Royal Society celebration for International Women's Day, where she discussed girls participation in scientific education and society.[8][9] She contributed to the Springer Publishing book, The Scientific Legacy of William Herschel.[10]

Having published extensively on the Herschel family, Winterburn began to write The Quiet Revolution of Caroline Herschel in 2012.[11][12] The Quiet Revolution of Caroline Herschel focuses on the ten most productive years of Caroline Herschel's academic career; working with her brother William Herschel's telescope and finding comets.[13] The book was published in 2017 and has been described as a "terrific read".[14][15]