Ruth Agnes Daly (born 1958) is an American astrophysicist. Wikipedia Daly

Education and career

Daly obtained a B.A. in Psychology and English from Boston College in 1979 and then switched fields to study Astronomy and Physics at

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with ...

. She obtained her Masters and Ph.D. in Astronomy and Physics from Boston University in 1984 and 1987, respectively, working with thesis advisers Alan P. Marscher and

Sheldon Glashow Sheldon Lee Glashow (, ; born December 5, 1932) is a Nobel Prize-winning American theoretical physicist. He is the Metcalf Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Boston University and Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at Harvard U ...

. She was a NATO-NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Astronomy in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

from 1987 to 1988, sponsored by

Sir Martin Rees Martin John Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: (born 23 June 1942) is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. He is the fifteenth Astronomer Royal, ...

. She joined the Physics Department at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

in 1988, first as a Research Associate (1988 to 1989), then as an Instructor (1989 to 1990), and finally as an Assistant Professor (1990 to 1998). She joined the faculty at

Bucknell University Bucknell University is a private liberal arts college in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1846 as the University at Lewisburg, it now consists of the College of Arts and Sciences, Freeman College of Management, and the College of Engineering ...

in 1998, and the faculty at the Pennsylvania State University at the Berks Campus in 1999. She is currently a Professor of Physics at Penn State University, Berks campus.

Research

Daly conducts theoretical, phenomenological, and observational work in astrophysics. Her main areas of study are cosmology and extragalactic astrophysics. She is most well-known for her work on the expansion and acceleration histories of the universe, the use of these histories to determine the contents of the universe, and studies of the properties of supermassive black holes, e.g., as summarized. Non-specialists interested in this work can read about it in the popular literature, such as Sky & Telescope. Some key results, obtained in collaboration with Professor Stanislav George Djorgovski, are that the expansion and acceleration histories of the universe can be determined in a model-independent manner, which does not require that a theory of gravity be specified and does not depend upon the contents of the universe. The results indicate that the universe is accelerating at the present time, and was decelerating in the recent past. Daly has also shown that the properties of outflows from the vicinity of a supermassive black hole can be used to estimate the spin of the black hole. Her ongoing research into the acceleration of the universe and the properties of supermassive black holes is discussed in detail in her publications, linked at her website.

Recognition

Daly was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2020, after a nomination from the APS Division of Astrophysics, "for studies of radio properties in supermassive black holes, leading to their use as cosmic rulers, and providing early evidence of their role in cosmic acceleration, and insight into the spin properties of the supermassive black holes that power the outflows".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Daly, Ruth Agnes American astrophysicists 1958 births Living people Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences alumni Boston University alumni Fellows of the American Physical Society