C. Megan Urry

C. Megan Urry 2014

Claudia Megan "Meg" Urry (* 1955 ) is an American astrophysicist at Yale University . In addition to her scientific contributions (especially on black holes ), she makes a contribution to promoting women in science, especially astrophysics.

Live and act

Urry grew up in Indiana and Boston . She earned a bachelor's degree in physics and mathematics from Tufts University in 1979 and a master's degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1979 and a Ph.D. in 1984. in physics. As a postdoctoral fellow , she worked with Claude Canizares at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Space Telescope Science Institute , which operates the Hubble space telescope . In 1990 she was given a position as a researcher (most recently as a senior scientist ) and from 1996 to 2001 she headed the office for the selection of research objects.

Meg Urry has held a professorship in physics and astronomy at Yale University since 2001 . She is founding director of the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics and was Chair of all physics at Yale from 2007 to 2013 .

Urry researches active galaxy nuclei and was able to prove that they are black holes and that their apparent intensity depends on the angle of observation. Her groundbreaking publication Unified Schemes for Radio-Loud Active Galactic Nuclei has been cited more than 4,300 times (as of December 2018). Further fields of her research are extrasolar planets , dark matter and dark energy as well as the development of galaxies and black holes over long periods of time.

Urry published (as of June 2018) over 310 peer-reviewed scientific publications ; It has an h-index of 77 (as of June 2018) . She organized the first Women in Astronomy meeting in 1992 and was a leader in the establishment of institutions for equality for women in the American Astronomical Society and the American Physical Society .

C. Megan Urry is married to the physicist Andrew Szymkowiak. The couple have two daughters.

literature

• Richard Panek: Astronomy and gender politics. In space and academia, Meg Urry pushes the envelope. In: Yale Alumin Magazine , March / April 2014

Awards (selection)

• 1990 Annie Jump Cannon Prize for Astronomy from the American Astronomical Society
• 1998 Fellow of the American Physical Society
• 2008 member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 2009 Honorary Doctorate from Tufts University
• 2013 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences
• 2014–2016 President of the American Astronomical Society
• 2016 member of the National Academy of Sciences

Web links

• Meg Urry's Group , Biosketch (PDF; 353 kB; June 2018) and CV (PDF; 362 kB; June 2018) at Yale University (yale.edu)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ C. Megan Urry, Paolo Padovani: Unified Schemes for Radio-Loud Active Galactic Nuclei . In: Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific . tape 107 , no. 715 , September 1995, p. 803-845 .
2. ↑ Unified schemes for radio-loud active galactic nuclei. In: scholar.google.de. Google Scholar , accessed December 30, 2018 . 
3. ^ Annie Jump Cannon Award in Astronomy. In: aas.org. American Astronomical Society , accessed December 30, 2018 . 
4. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present, Chapter U. (PDF; 58 kB) In: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org). Retrieved December 30, 2018 . 
5. ^ Past Officers and Trustees. In: aas.org. American Astronomical Society , accessed December 30, 2018 . 
6. ↑ C. Megan Urry. In: nasonline.org. National Academy of Sciences , accessed December 30, 2018 .