Pioneering Cornellians often make change—but for the first time, you’ll find a Cornellian on your change! Vera Cooper Rubin, MS ’51, a groundbreaking astronomer whose life’s work included procuring the scientific evidence to prove the existence of dark matter, is being featured in the 2025 cohort of the American Women Quarters Program.
According to Big Red history expert Corey Ryan Earle ’07, it’s believed to be the first time a Cornellian has ever been depicted on a circulating U.S. coin.
The program, which the U.S. Mint launched in 2022 in partnership with the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum, has honored five women annually with individual designs on the reverse side of the quarter.
Rubin’s fellow honorees for 2025—the program’s final year—are athlete Althea Gibson, Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low, disabilities activist Stacey Park Milbern, and journalist and suffragist Ida B. Wells.
The five designs will be circulated throughout the country over the next several months.
Serge Petchenyi/Cornell University
From left, Xi Yang, PhD '10, senior lecturer of finance in the SC Johnson College of Business; Christine Ye; Christine Ye Award recipient Margaret E. Foster, doctoral candidate in communication; Cornelia Ye Award recipient Naman Agrawal, doctoral candidate in neurobiology and behavior; Cornelia Ye; and Derina Samuel, associate director of graduate student development at the Center for Teaching Innovation.
NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)
Artist concept of the gas giant planet WD 1856 b orbiting a white dwarf star. The planet is 7 times larger than the Earth-sized white dwarf it orbits. WD 1856 b has methane and hazes in its atmosphere, which would give it a similar color to Saturn's moon Titan. The white dwarf formed from a star that died 5 billion years ago, and has been cooling ever since, giving it an orange colour similar to the Sun.
