Sarah Lee Lippincott

Lippincott died on February 28, 2019, in Kendal Longwood.

She is listed as professor emerita of astronomy and director emerita of the Sproul Observatory in the 2010 Swarthmore college catalog. She last published astronomy research papers in 1983. In 2009, she attended the dedication ceremony for the new Peter van de Kamp observatory at Swarthmore College.

She was the third wife of the late Dave Garroway, the founding host of NBC's Today show. Garroway had an active interest in astronomy, and they met on a tour of observatories in the Soviet Union that she was hosting. After Garroway's death by suicide at their home in 1982, she helped establish the Dave Garroway Laboratory for the Study of Depression at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1976, she was elected to the Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania (as Mrs. Christian Zimmerman).

In 1973, she was awarded an honorary doctor of science by Villanova University.

In 1966, she received the Kappa Kappa Gamma Alumnae Achievement Award.

After graduation from the University of Pennsylvania, Lippincott attended Swarthmore College, where she worked closely with Peter van de Kamp on many astrometry projects between 1945 and his retirement in 1972, when she became observatory director. She wrote his obituary when he died in 1995.

Lippincott received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1941 and an Master of Arts from Swarthmore College in 1942.

Sarah Lee Lippincott (October 26, 1920 – February 28, 2019), also known as Sarah Lee Lippincott Zimmerman, was an American astronomer. She was professor emerita of astronomy at Swarthmore College and director emerita of the college's Sproul Observatory. She was a pioneer in the use of astrometry to determine the character of binary stars and search for extrasolar planets.

Lippincott was born in 1920 and attended college at the University of Pennsylvania College for Women in the 1940s, where she played on the women's basketball team.