Bellagio Residency: February 2023
Project: “Aiming for the Stars: A woman’s rocky path in astrophysics and how the road to a science career can be made smoother for other outsiders”
Meg Urry is an American astrophysicist renowned for her research on the growth of supermassive black holes and their co-evolution with galaxies. She has also been an advocate for gender equity in physics, astronomy, and STEM more generally since the 1980s, when she began to understand that the playing field was not yet level. Meg came to Bellagio in February 2023 to work on a book describing her path to astrophysics, placed in the context of the low numbers of women in physics and astronomy. She is the current Israel Munson Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Yale University, Director of the Yale Center for Astronomy & Astrophysics, and former President of the American Astronomical Society.