Barney was born on November 6, 1886 in New Haven, Connecticut. Her mother was Ida Bushnell Barney and her father was Samuel Eben Barney. She was an avid birder and the New Haven Bird Club President. After her retirement from Yale, she continued to live in New Haven, where she died on March 7, 1982, 95 years old.
Education
In 1908, Barney was graduated from Smith College with a Bachelor of Arts degree. There, she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi, national honor societies for students. Three years later, she received her Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale University.
Scientific career
From 1911–1912, just after receiving her Ph.D., Barney was a mathematics professor at Rollins College. At the conclusion of that year, she moved to her alma mater to Smith College, where she was an instructor of mathematics. In 1917, she was hired as a professor at Lake Erie College, where she stayed until 1919. In 1920, she returned to Smith College as an assistant professor. In 1922, the Yale University Observatory appointed Barney as a research assistant, a title she held until 1949, when she was promoted to research associate. The Observatory, like many other university observatories, was allocating significant resources to astronomry, thanks to the development of telescope-mounted cameras. At the beginning of her career in astronomy, Barney worked under Frank Schlesinger; she plotted the position of stars from photographic plates and worked on the calculations of their celestial coordinates from their positions on the plates. The work was tedious, which Schlesinger thought to be suitable for women incapable of theoretical research. Despite this influence, she developed several methods that increased both the accuracy and speed of astronomic measurements, including the use of a machine that automatically centered the photographic plates. In 1941, when Schlesinger retired, Barney took over full supervision of the cataloguing. Under her direction, the measurements of the photographic plates were completed at the IBM WatsonScientific Laboratory using a new electronic device that advanced the reduction of eye strain and increased accuracy. Her life's work, completed over 23 years, contributed to the Yale Observatory Zone Catalog, a series of star catalogs published by the Yale Observatory for 1939 to 1983, containing approximately 400,000 stars, and influenced the Bright Star Catalogue. Her individual contribution to these star catalogues recorded the position, magnitude, and proper motion of approximately 150,000 stars. Due to its high accuracy, the catalogue is still used today in proper motion studies. She retired from academic life in 1955. She was succeeded by Ellen Dorrit Hoffleit.
