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Meg Urry
Summary
Claudia Megan Urry is an American astrophysicist, who has served as the President of the American Astronomical Society, as chair of the Department of Physics at Yale University, and as part of the Hubble Space Telescope faculty. She is currently the Israel Munson Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Yale University and Director of the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics. Urry is notable not only for her contributions to astronomy and astrophysics, including work on black holes and multiwavelength surveys, but also for her work addressing sexism and sex equality in astronomy, science, and academia more generally.
After growing up in Indiana and Massachusetts, Urry attended college at Tufts University, double-majoring in mathematics and physics, graduating in 1977. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received the N. Hopes Knight Award for Physics. She became interested in astronomy during the summer of her junior year when she interned at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
Urry earned an M.S. (1979) and a Ph.D. (1984) in physics from Johns Hopkins, where her advisor was Art Davidsen. For her dissertation, she studied blazars at Goddard Space Flight Center with Richard Mushotzky.
After finishing her Ph.D., Urry conducted a post-doctorate at M.I.T.'s Center for Space Research, working with Claude Canizares. This was followed by another post-doctorate at the Space Telescope Science Institute, after which, in 1990, the Institute hired her as a full-time astronomer.
Urry joined Yale's faculty in 2001, at that time as the only woman in the department. She served as Chair of the Yale Physics Department from 2007 to 2013. From 2013 to 2017 she served in the Presidential line of the American Astronomical Society, from 2013-2014 as President-Elect, 2014-2016 as President, and 2016-2017 as Past President. In 2020 she was named one of the American Astronomical Society's inaugural class of fellows.
Urry has been active in addressing sex inequality in astronomy and science more generally, giving more than 60 talks on the topic, including at the annual Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP).
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