Laura Grego

Last updated

Laura Grego is an American physicist specializing in nuclear safety and security and space policy. She is a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, where she is research director of the Global Security Program. [1]

Contents

Education and career

Grego graduated from the University of Michigan in 1992, with a double major in physics and astronomy. She continued studying astrophysics at the California Institute of Technology, where she completed her Ph.D. in 1999. [2] Her dissertation research concerned the Sunyaev–Zeldovich effect and its application in calibrating the cosmic distance ladder and measuring galaxy clusters, supervised by John Carlstrom. [3]

She was a postdoctoral researcher at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, before taking her present position at the Union of Concerned Scientists. [1]

Recognition

Grego was named as a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2021, after a nomination from the APS Forum on Physics and Society, "for producing significant, highly influential technical and policy analyses of critical issues in international security and arms control, especially in the areas of missile defense, space weapons, and space security, and for sustained activities that have engaged and educated students, colleagues, policy makers, and the public about these issues". [4]

She was the recipient of the 2023 Leo Szilard Lectureship Award of the APS, "for significant, influential analyses of critical issues in international security and arms control, especially in the areas of missile defense, space weapons, and space security; for sustained activities educating students, colleagues, policymakers, and the public about these issues". [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rashid Sunyaev</span> Russian astronomer (born 1943)

Rashid Alievich Sunyaev is a German, Soviet, and Russian astrophysicist of Tatar descent. He got his MS degree from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) in 1966. He became a professor at MIPT in 1974. Sunyaev was the head of the High Energy Astrophysics Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and has been chief scientist of the Academy's Space Research Institute since 1992. He has also been a director of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany since 1996, and Maureen and John Hendricks Distinguished Visiting Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton since 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John N. Bahcall</span> American astrophysicist

John Norris Bahcall was an American astrophysicist and the Richard Black Professor for Astrophysics at the Institute for Advanced Study. He was known for a wide range of contributions to solar, galactic and extragalactic astrophysics, including the solar neutrino problem, the development of the Hubble Space Telescope and for his leadership and development of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

Frank N. von Hippel is an American physicist. He is Professor and Co-Director of Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University and the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.

Kurt Gottfried was an Austrian-born American physicist who was professor emeritus of physics at Cornell University. He was known for his work in the areas of quantum mechanics and particle physics and was also a co-founder with Henry Way Kendall of the Union of Concerned Scientists. He wrote extensively in the areas of physics and arms control.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Priyamvada Natarajan</span> Indian astronomer

Priyamvada (Priya) Natarajan is a professor in the departments of astronomy and physics at Yale University. She is noted for her work in mapping dark matter and dark energy, particularly with her work in gravitational lensing, and in models describing the assembly and accretion histories of supermassive black holes. She authored the book Mapping the Heavens: The Radical Scientific Ideas That Reveal the Cosmos.

Edwin S. Lyman is a physicist and the Director of Nuclear Power Safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). He specializes in nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism, and nuclear power safety.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendy Freedman</span> Canadian-American astronomer

Wendy Laurel Freedman is a Canadian-American astronomer, best known for her measurement of the Hubble constant, and as director of the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California, and Las Campanas, Chile. She is now the John & Marion Sullivan University Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. Her principal research interests are in observational cosmology, focusing on measuring both the current and past expansion rates of the universe, and on characterizing the nature of dark energy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Belinda Wilkes</span> English astrophysicist

Belinda Jane Wilkes is a Senior Astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, and former director of the Chandra X-ray Center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin C. Weisskopf</span>

Dr. Martin C. Weisskopf until his retirement from NASA in at the end of May, 2022, was project scientist for NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Chief Scientist for X-ray Astronomy in the Space Sciences Department at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He was also the Principal Investigator of the Small Explorer mission the Imaging X-ray Polarization Explorer (IXPE).

The Leo Szilard Lectureship Award is given annually by the American Physical Society (APS) for "outstanding accomplishments by physicists in promoting the use of physics for the benefit of society". It is given internationally in commemoration of physicist Leo Szilard.

"In the year's of Szilard's life and activity it became clearer than ever before how great the responsibility of scientists is to the society. And, to a large extent, it is due to Szilard that this awareness began to spread in the scientific community." - Andrei Sakharov

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chryssa Kouveliotou</span> Greek astrophysicist and astronomer

Chryssa Kouveliotou is a Greek astrophysicist. She is a professor at George Washington University and a retired senior technologist in high-energy astrophysics at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vicky Kalogera</span> Greek astrophysicist

Vassiliki Kalogera is a Greek astrophysicist. She is a professor at Northwestern University and the director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA). She is a leading member of the LIGO Collaboration that observed gravitational waves in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rita M. Sambruna</span> Italian astrophysicist

Rita M. Sambruna Commander OMRI (Hon) is an Italian-American astrophysicist and is the Deputy Director of the Astrophysics Science Division at National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center. From September 2022 to May 2023, she was the Acting Deputy Director of the Science Exploration Directorate at Goddard. Rita held the Clare Boothe Luce Professorship in Physics and Astronomy at George Mason University in 2000-2005.

Linda Siobhan Sparke is a British astronomer known for her research on the structure and dynamics of galaxies. She is a professor emerita of astronomy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Explorers Program Scientist in the NASA Astrophysics Division.

Lisbeth Dagmar Gronlund is an American physicist and nuclear disarmament expert, the former co-director of the Global Security Program for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Lucy Frear Fortson is an American astronomer known for her work on gamma-ray astronomy and Galaxy morphological classification and for her leadership of citizen science projects including the Galaxy Zoo and Zooniverse. She is a professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Minnesota.

Marlene Rosenberg is an American plasma physicist known for her work on cosmic and interplanetary dusty plasma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikolaos Kylafis</span> Greek university professor (born 1949)

Nikolaos Kylafis is a Greek Theoretical Astrophysicist, who is professor emeritus at the Department of Physics of the University of Crete, Greece.

Anna Marie Quider is an American astronomer and science lobbyist. Formerly the Assistant Vice President for Federal Relations at Northern Illinois University, she remains affiliated with Northern Illinois University as a senior research fellow, and heads consulting firm The Quider Group. She also chairs the Forum on Physics and Society of the American Physical Society.

References

  1. 1 2 "Laura Grego: Senior Scientist and Research Director", People, Union of Concerned Scientists, retrieved 2023-07-05
  2. 1 2 2023 Leo Szilard Lectureship Award Recipient: Laura Grego, Union of Concerned Scientists, American Physical Society, retrieved 2023-07-05
  3. Grego, Laura (1999), Galaxy cluster gas fractions from interferometric measurements of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (Doctoral dissertation), California Institute of Technology, doi:10.7907/acvg-2168
  4. "Fellows nominated in 2021 by the Forum on Physics and Society", APS Fellows archive, American Physical Society, retrieved 2023-07-05