Tourtellotte graduated from
MIT in 1966, and received an M.S. degree from
Yale University in 1967. She continued to study for a Ph.D. in
biochemistry from
Princeton University in 1971. From 1998, Tourtellote was the data manager at the
Yale University department of astronomy for the YALO and SMARTS consortium. She worked with
Brad Schaefer on photometry of the moon
Nereid. In 2003 together with
David L. Rabinowitz, Brad and Martha Schaefer she studied the solar phase curves and rotation states of
Kuiper belt objects. In 2013; she worked on the
La Silla Observatory Quest KBO survey Tourtellote was faculty member at
Albertus Magnus College until 2008. She was a research scientist at the department of astronomy at Yale. She died at the age of 68 in
Hamden, Connecticut. == List of discovered minor planets ==