[2] She graduated from Goldsmith High School in 1917, and attended Indiana University.

[5] She was assistant to astronomer Frank K. Edmondson when he discovered a dwarf star in 1944.

[6][7] She analyzed thousands photographic plates using a device called a blink comparator,[8] and "contributed immensely to the program of minor planet observations".

[10] In 1955, she was part of an "all-Hoosier team" that discovered the asteroid named 1602 Indiana; "Mrs. Beryl Potter, research assistant, gets credit for the most important work, since she actually spotted the tiny planet among thousands of stars on photographic plates," explained a 1955 newspaper report.

[11] An asteroid (1729 Beryl) was officially named in her honor in 1968,[12] by astronomer Paul Herget.