Nan Dieter-Conklin obtained an undergraduate degree from Goucher College in 1948 and a Ph.D from Radcliffe College. She was the first American woman whose PhD dissertation used radio astronomy data and, in 1952, was the first American woman to formally publish original research in the field. Over the course of her career at Harvard and Berkeley, she pioneered studies of neutral hydrogen in nearby galaxies that are members of the local group and of the structure of the interstellar medium in the Milky Way and other galaxies. She also played a key role in early discoveries and investigations of interstellar masers.