May Arif Kaftan (January 14, 1928–July 23, 2020), also known by the surname Kaftan-Kassim, worked at the Harvard College Observatory from 1953 to approximately 1962. Her work was focused on radio astronomy.
Kaftan arrived at the HCO in 1953 to pursue graduate studies in astronomy, and her advisor, Bart Bok, pushed her to pursue radio astronomy, which she would later describe as an “insightful” decision on his part.1 For her thesis project, she used Harvard’s 21-centimeter radio telescope to study a 20 x 25 degree region of Cygnus, making contour maps and comparing them to optical information.2 During her time at Harvard, she was disappointed by the lack of formal training available to her, but she credited the observatory with developing her love for the field, saying that they were “very, very formative years in my attitude towards astronomy.”3 She earned her PhD in astronomy from Radcliffe College, the womens’ college at Harvard, in 1958.4
After graduating from Harvard, Kaftan returned to Iraq, but having arrived only months before the Iraqi revolution of 1958, she encountered difficulties both personally and professionally.5 She gave birth to twins in May 1958, of which only one, her son Namir, survived, and, due to her gender, she had trouble getting professional teaching or research appointments, a situation which was exacerbated by the political turmoil of the Iraqi revolution in July 1958.6 She soon decided to return to the HCO to work with their new Agassiz 60-foot radio telescope and to do statistical work on galaxy counts.7 In 1964, feeling isolated and uninspired at the HCO,8 Kaftan moved to Green Bank, West Virginia to work at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO).9 During this time, she also assisted in establishing an astronomy department and library at the new University of Baghdad.10 In 1966, she joined the faculty of the State University of New York (SUNY) in Albany, where she won NSF grants to research nebulae at various international observatories.11
In 1976, Kaftan returned to Iraq to direct the creation of the new Iraqi Astronomical Observatory. Over the prior two years, she had already done some consulting work on the project, including helping to choose a site for the observatory,12 and she was personally invited to the directorship by the President of Iraq, Ahmed Hassan Al-Bakr.13 She supervised the building of new telescopes and the hiring and training of new staff, and she made frequent television appearances to educate the general public about astronomy and science.14 Because of her connections with the wider international radio astronomy community, she was able to form collaborations with several western observatories; in particular, she had telescopes constructed at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and arranged for her young Iraqi staff members to travel there for training.15 Having separated from her husband, she happily lived independently in Baghdad, which was unusual for an Iraqi woman and provoked the “despair” of her close-knit family.16 In 1982, with her observatory work under immense pressure from traditionalist factions and the political upheaval of the Iraq-Iran war, she chose to resign from the project and return to the U.S.17 Sadly, the observatory site was bombed by Iran in 1985 and never completed.18
After returning to the U.S., Kaftan taught astronomy at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, Georgia, which she very much enjoyed.19 She also represented Iraq at the United Nations on the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) and the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Spaces (COPUOS).20
Kaftan grew up in Baghdad and attended secondary school there, and she earned her bachelor’s degree in math and physics in 1949 from the University of Manchester in the UK.21 Her father, Ahmed Arif Kaftan, was an Iraqi government official, and he encouraged his two daughters to go abroad to get a college education.22 Kaftan married Dr. Sami Elskeikh Kassim, a pediatrician,23 in the early 1950s, and while at Harvard she used the surname Kaftan-Kassim.24 After separating from her husband in the late 1960s or early 1970s, she returned to using the surname Kaftan.25 She had one son, Namir, who also became a radio astronomer.26 She was described by friends as “strong,” “open-minded,” and “delightfully humorous.”27 She died in Alexandria, Virginia on July 23, 2020 at the age of 92.28
Written by Elizabeth Coquillette, 2022
Selected Publications:
Kaftan-Kassim, May A. “A Study of Neutral Hydrogen in a Region in Cygnus.” Astrophysical Journal vol. 133 (May 1961): 821. Bibcode: 1961ApJ…133..821K
Kaftan-Kassim, May A. “A Survey of High-Frequency Radio Radiation from Planetary Nebulae.” Astrophysical Journal vol. 155 (February 1969): 469. Bibcode: 1969ApJ…155..469K
Kaftan-Kassim, May A. “The Planetary Nebula NGC 3242.” Astrophysical Journal vol. 145 (August 1966): 658. Bibcode: 1966ApJ…145.658K
Kaftan-Kassim, M. A. and J. W. Sulentic. “Low Frequency Radio Observations of the Stephan’s Quintet Region.” Astronomy and Astrophysics vol. 33 (July 1974): 343. Bibcode: 1974A&A….33..343K
Kaftan-Kassim, M. A., J. W. Sulentic, and G. Sistla. “High frequency radio observations of the Stephan’s Quintet region.” Nature vol. 253, no. 5488 (January 1975): 176-177. Bibcode: 1975Natur.253..176K
Stocke, J. T., W. G. Tifft, and M. A. Kaftan-Kassim. “A radio continuum survey of isolated pairs of galaxies.” Astronomical Journal vol. 83 (April 1978): 322-359. Bibcode: 1978AJ…..83..322S
Citations:
1- Oral history interview with May A. Kaftan-Kassim, August 13, 1981 at the USRI Meeting in Washington D.C. Recording retrieved from the Papers of Woodruff T. Sullivan III, “Interview with May A. Kaftan-Kassim,” NRAO Archives, https://www.nrao.edu/archives/items/show/14985.↩
2-Ibid↩
3- Ibid.↩
4- “Astronomy Alumni,” https://astronomy.fas.harvard.edu/astronomy-alumni. ↩
5- “Oral history interview with May A. Kaftan-Kassim.”↩
6- Ibid.↩
7- Ibid.↩
8- Ibid.↩
9- Jaap Baars, “Obituary: May A. Kaftan,” Archives of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 2020. https://rahist.nrao.edu/kassim_bio-memoir.shtml↩
10- “Office Opened by Dr. Kassim,” The Bridgeport Post (Bridgeport, Connecticut), March 4, 1964.↩
11-Jörg Matthias Determan, Space Science and the Arab World: Astronauts, Observatories, and Nationalism in the Middle East (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), 46. ISBN: 9781786733528↩
12- “Albany Teacher Invited to Iraq,” The Post-Star (Glens Falls, New York), May 9, 1974.↩
13- Ibid., Barrs, “Obituary: May A. Kaftan.“ ↩
14- Kathleen Hendrix, “An Astronomer’s View from Iraq,” The Los Angeles Times, December 2, 1979, p. X 10-11.↩
15- Determan, Space Science and the Arab World, 40.↩
16- Hendrix, “An Astronomer’s View from Iraq.”↩
17- Determan, Space Science and the Arab World, 19; Barrs, “Obituary: May A. Kaftan.” ↩
18- Determan, Space Science and the Arab World, 41.↩
19 Lectures: Agnes Scott College, ‘A Star is Born’,” The Atlanta Constitution, December 31, 1983, p. 81; Barrs, “Obituary: May A. Kaftan.”↩
20- Determan, Space Science and the Arab World, 39; Barrs, “Obituary: May A. Kaftan.”↩
21- “Oral history interview with May A. Kaftan-Kassim;” Barrs, “Obituary: May A. Kaftan.”↩
22- Ibid.↩
23- “Office Opened by Dr. Kassim.”↩
24- “Astronomy Alumni.”↩
25- Hendrix, “An Astronomer’s View from Iraq.”↩
26- Ibid.↩
27- “Obituary: May A. Kaftan.” ↩
28-Ibid.↩