Rocky Hill, CT – Meg Urry, PhD, will deliver this year’s keynote address at the 44th Annual Meeting and Dinner of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE), Tuesday May 28, 2019, at the Red Lion Hotel Cromwell. CASE member Urry is the Israel Munson Professor of Physics and Astronomy and Director of the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics for Yale University. She will speak on how astrophysics can help solve humanity’s big challenges.

Best known for her research on active galaxies that host accreting supermassive black holes in their centers, she is recognized as one of the world’s leading astrophysicists and for promoting the impact of the physical sciences on the Earth. Additionally, Dr. Urry has worked to increase the number of women and minorities in science, including organizing the first national meeting on Women in Astronomy.

A physics and mathematics graduate of Tufts University, Professor Urry earned her doctorate in Physics and Astronomy from The Johns Hopkins University. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she was a senior astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute that runs the Hubble Space Telescope for NASA, and headed the institute’s Science Program Selection Office that oversees the solicitation and review of observation proposals. When she joined Yale, Urry was the first woman granted tenure by the university’s physics department and served as department chair from 2007-2013.

Professor Urry has published more than 300 scientific articles on supermassive black holes and galaxies and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Tufts University and the American Astronomical Society’s Annie Jump Cannon and George van Biesbroeck prizes. She received the 2010 Women in Space Award from the Adler Planetarium for her
efforts to increase the number of women in the physical sciences, and writes about science for CNN.com.