Paris Pismis (1911 - 1999)
She was the first woman to graduate from the science faculty of Istanbul University. She worked in the area of galactic structure and discovered 20 Open Clusters and 3 Globular Clusters. She was one of the first astronomers to study young stellar clusters using photometric photometry.
She was a Turkish astronomer of Armenian descent, one of the first women to attend university in Turkey. She graduated in 1937 with a PhD in mathematics. She became an assistant astronomer at Harvard College Observatory in 1939, hired for 30 hours a week at 50 cents per hour. Paris married a Mexican mathematician whom she met when he visited Harvard. She moved to Mexico, first to Observatorio Astrofisico de Tonantzintla in Puebla and later at Observatorio Astronomico Nacional at Tacubaya. She was the first formally trained astronomer in the country and for many years she was a major driving force in the formation of new astronomers. She published over 100 papers and supervised at least half a dozen PhD theses. She studied kinematics in mildly active galaxies, HII nebulae. the structure of Open Clusters and Planetary Nebulae. She compiled the Pismis Catalague with 22 Open Clusters and 2 Globular Clusters in the southern hemisphere. Paris was a role model for women astronomers and of approximately 80 astronomers at UNAM over the years, 25% were women.