Meg Urry

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.

Early life and education
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.

Career
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). With Laura Danly, Urry co-organized the first meeting of Women in Astronomy in 1992. This meeting produced the "Baltimore Charter," which was drafted by Sheila Tobias and eventually endorsed by the Council of the American Astronomical Society. Reducing the prevalence of sexual harassment in astronomy was also an area of focus for Urry during the time she was President of the American Astronomical Society. In 2010 she won the Women in Space Science Award from the Adler Planetarium, and in 2015 she won the Edward A. Bouchet Leadership award from Yale University.

Urry has published over 330 papers in refereed journals, including one of the most highly cited review papers in astronomy. She studies supermassive black holes, known as Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), and the relationship of normal galaxies to AGNs. She and her research group participated in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to investigate the growth of supermassive black holes.

Awards and honors

 * 1976, 1977, N. Hobbs Knight Award for Physics from Tufts University
 * 1976, Phi Beta Kappa
 * 1990, Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy
 * 1999, American Physical Society Fellow
 * 2006, American Women in Science Fellow
 * 2007, Connecticut Academy of Science & Engineering
 * 2008, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
 * 2010, Women in Space Science Award
 * 2012, George Van Biesbroeck Prize
 * 2016, National Academy of Sciences
 * 2020, American Astronomical Society Fellow
 * 2023, American Astronomical Society High Energy Astrophysics Division Distinguished Career Prize