Trimble "grew up the only child of a chemist father and a mother with a flair for language, within easy driving distance of both UCLA and Caltech." While attending
UCLA in 1962, she was the subject of a
Life article titled "Behind a Lovely Face, a 180 I.Q." The following year, she was selected to promote
The Twilight Zone television show as "Miss Twilight Zone" in a national publicity tour. She received her B.A. from UCLA in 1964 and her Ph.D. from the
California Institute of Technology in 1968. At the time, the California Institute of Technology did not admit women students "except under exceptional circumstances," and she was only the second woman allowed access to the
Palomar Observatory. Following a year of teaching at
Smith College and two years postdoctoral work at the
Institute of Theoretical Astronomy in Cambridge, Trimble joined the faculty of the
University of California, Irvine in 1971, where she is now Professor of
astronomy. She met
University of Maryland, College Park Professor
Joseph Weber, a pioneer in
gravitational wave physics, in 1972 and they married 11 days later. From then until his death in 2000, she spent half of each academic year as a visiting professor at the University of Maryland. She was vice president of the
International Astronomical Union's Executive Committee from 1994-2000, and vice president of the
American Astronomical Society from 1997-2000. == Honors ==