Leigh Royden

Leigh "Wiki" H. Royden is an American Geologist.

Early life
Royden was born in Palo Alto, California. Royden's father was Halsey Royden, a mathematician.

Education
Royden received an A.B. degree in physics from Harvard University and a PhD in geology and geophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Career
Royden became a member of the faculty at MIT in 1988. She is director of MIT's Experimental Study Group.

Royden has published important papers on thermal subsidence at the northeastern continental margin of North America and on retreating subduction boundaries formed during the collision of continental tectonic plates.

In 1990, she was awarded the Donath Medal (Young Scientist Award) by the Geological Society of America. Royden was named a fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2004. In 2011, she received the George P. Woollard Award. In 2013, she was awarded the Stephan Mueller Medal by the European Geosciences Union. In 2018, she was named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 1994, Royden was one of 16 women faculty in the School of Science at MIT who drafted and co-signed a letter to the then-Dean of Science (now Chancellor of Berkeley) Robert Birgeneau, which started a campaign to highlight and challenge gender discrimination at MIT.