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Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, DBE , FRS FRAS , Ph.D (born as '''Susan Jocelyn Bell''', 15 July 1943 ) is an Astrophysicist , who, as a postgraduate student, discovered the first radio Pulsar s with her thesis advisor Antony Hewish , for which he won a Nobel Prize. As Hewish's graduate student, Bell first noticed the radio source which was ultimately recognised as the first pulsar. The paper announcing the discovery had five authors, Hewish's name being listed first, Bell's second. Hewish was awarded the Nobel Prize , along with Martin Ryle , without the inclusion of Bell as a co-recipient, which was controversial, and was roundly condemned by Hewish's fellow astronomer Fred Hoyle.1 Others, however, have noted that the prize was given to Ryle and Hewish for their work across the field of radio-astronomy as a whole, with particular mention of Ryle's work on aperture-synthesis, and Hewish's on pulsars.
BACKGROUND AND FAMILY LIFE ::''"You don't have to learn lots and lots...of facts; you just learn a few key things, and...then you can apply and build and develop from those... He was a really good teacher and showed me, actually, how easy physics was."'' She married Martin Burnell in 1968, and they have one son, Gavin, born in 1973, and a grandson, Matthew, born in 2005. ACADEMIC CAREER She graduated from the for using interplanetary Scintillation to study Quasars , which had recently been discovered (interplanetary scintillation allows compact sources to be distinguished from extended ones). Detecting a bit of "scruff" on her chart recorder papers that tracked across the sky with the stars, Bell Burnell found that the signal was regularly pulsing, about once each second. Temporarily dubbed "Little Green Man 1" the source was eventually identified as a rapidly rotating Neutron Star . NON-ACADEMIC LIFE Bell is the house patron of Burnell House at Cambridge House Grammar School in Ballymena , Northern Ireland, and sits on the Advisory Board of the Faraday Institute For Science And Religion . She has campaigned to improve the status and number of women in professional and academic posts in the fields of physics and astronomy. Article by Bell Burnell in ''Science'':"So Few Pulsars, So Few Females" 23 April 2004: Vol. 304. no. 5670, p. 489 See also Belfast Telegraph's interview, at this time. Quaker activities and beliefs From her school days, Bell has remained an active Quaker and served as Clerk to the sessions of Britain Yearly Meeting in 1995, 1996 and 1997. She delivered a Swarthmore Lecture under the title ''Broken for life'',Details of the print version of the lecture are given in the Bibliography at Yearly Meeting in Aberdeen on August 1 1989 . Bell revealed her personal religious history and beliefs in an interview with Testimonies Committee, which produced ''Engaging with the Quaker Testimonies: a Toolkit'' in February 2007,''Engaging with the Quaker Testimonies: a Toolkit'', 2007 ISBN 0-90168959-9 and wrote the introductory essay. HONOURS Although she was overlooked and Didn't Share the 1974 Nobel Prize for Physics with Hewish for her discovery, she has been honoured by many other organisations:
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