Mary Watson Whitney (September 11, 1847 – January 20, 1921) was an American astronomer and was the head of the Vassar College Observatory for 22 years, where 102 scientific papers were published under her guidance.

She was privately tutored for one year before she entered Vassar College in 1865, where she met the astronomer Maria Mitchell.

[2] After returning to the United States, Whitney became a teacher at Waltham High School between 1876 and 1881 until she became an assistant of Maria Mitchell at Vassar.

[2] Whitney was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a charter member of the Astronomical and Astrophysical Society.

Moreover, she believed that scientific training would prepare them to be good mothers, falling into more traditional tropes of the early 20th century.

In 1908, when the Maria Mitchell Observatory was built on Nantucket, Whitney raised money to fund a female research fellow.