Caroline Furness

Caroline Ellen Furness (June 24, 1869 – February 9, 1936) was an American astronomer who taught at Vassar College in the early twentieth century.

She studied under Mary Watson Whitney at Vassar and was the first woman to earn a PhD in astronomy from Columbia University.

Under Whitney she took part in a nearly decade long program of comet and planet observations.

[1] With the facilitation of Whitney and financial support from Catherine Wolfe Bruce and Frederic Thompson, she began working at Columbia University under Harold Jacoby in 1896 and would publish her Ph.D. dissertation "Catalogue of stars within one degree of the North pole and optical distortion of the Helsingfors astro-photographic telescope deduced from photographic measures" there in 1900.

[2] Furness was also a member of the Astronomical Society and the Association of Variable Star Observers.