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February 10, 2006|Volume 34, Number 18


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C. Megan Urry



C. Megan Urry designated the Israel Munson Professor of Physics and Astronomy

C. Megan Urry, the newly named Israel Munson Professor of Physics and Astronomy, has earned renown both for her research on supermassive black holes and for her efforts to increase the number of women and minorities in the physical sciences.

Urry's scientific research concerns active galaxies -- i.e., galaxies with unusually luminous cores powered by very massive black holes. Her group has carried out extensive multiwavelength imaging and spectroscopy -- much of it in space -- of blazars (a type of galaxy with a highly variable energy source at the center) and quasars (an astronomical source of electromagnetic energy) in order to understand their energetics, structure and evolution. Her current interests include the mass function of black holes and the co-evolution of active and normal galaxies.

After receiving a B.S. in physics and mathematics at Tufts University, she earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics and astronomy from The Johns Hopkins University, the latter for X-ray and ultraviolet studies done at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she moved to the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which runs the Hubble Telescope. There, she became a tenured member of the senior scientific staff and headed the STScI Science Program Selection Office, which reviews proposals for using the Hubble.

When Urry arrived at Yale in 2001, she was the first female tenured faculty member in the history of the Department of Physics. Here, she developed two large collaborative research projects with Chilean astronomers and designed new courses to introduce undergraduatess to the physical sciences.

As part of her work to promote diversity in the physical sciences, Urry organized national meetings on women in astronomy in 1992 and 2003; led the U.S. delegation to the first international meeting on Women in Physics in Paris in 2002; chaired the Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy for the American Astronomical Society; and served on the Committee on the Status of Women in Physics of the American Physiologic Society. She is a member of the Yale Women Faculty Forum, and was elected a fellow of American Women in Science in 2006.

Urry won the Annie Jump Cannon Award of the American Astronomical Society and was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society in 1998. She is a member of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academy of Sciences National Research Council (NRC); co-chairs the NRC's Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics; and has advised NASA on Hubble, Chandra, Spitzer, RXTE, ASCA and other space observatories.


T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

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Yale receives $5.4 million NIH grant . . .

Trips to Afghanistan kindle student's love of parents' homeland

'How many deaths? ... How many injuries?'

Yale composer is elected the president of scholarly academy

ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIPS

Symposium pays tribute to noted architect Philip Johnson

Film explores evolution vs. intelligent design

Yale affiliates to be among featured guests at LEAP fundraising dinner

New test uses amniotic fluid to predict possibility of premature birth

Sex of fetus shown to affect severity of symptoms in women with asthma

Analyzing proteins in urine can help diagnose, classify preeclampsia'

Exhibit, symposium focus on two 'Witnesses to War and Revolution'

The 60-year history of the United Nations is celebrated in new library exhibit

Expert on global environmental issues named Distinguished Visiting Fellow

Issues of chronic illness explored in international conference

Readings celebrate 'London's River' in verse and prose

Campus Notes


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