Catala i Poch Maria Assumpcio

Maria Assumpció Català i Poch (1925–2009) was a Spanish mathematician, astronomer and astrophysicist from Catalonia. She studied at the University of Barcelona and obtained her degree in mathematics in 1953, driven by a long-standing passion for astronomy. She directed her research towards sunspots, dynamical stellar systems and the Oort cloud. In 1970, she earned a doctorate in mathematics devoted to the dynamics of stellar systems with cylindrical symmetry, becoming the first woman to obtain this degree in Barcelona. Throughout her career, she conducted systematic observation programmes and specialised in orbit determination and the study of ellipses. She taught at the University of Barcelona, the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris. She represented Spain in the International Astronomical Union.