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New Anchor for Physics Firmament
March/April 2007
by Cathy Shufro
Meg Urry decided to study astrophysics because it
breaches barriers of time and distance: “The idea that you could spend your day
studying what was happening billions of light years away really appealed to me."
Urry, the Israel Munson Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Yale, will soon
be tracking matters closer to home: the workings of the Yale physics
department. Beginning July 1, Urry will head the department—becoming the
first woman chair in the physical sciences at Yale. Nationwide, men head 89
percent of physics departments.
Urry investigates the formation and evolution of the
super-massive black holes that astrophysicists believe anchor each galaxy.
Mysteriously, stars in the galaxy that are distant enough from the central
black hole to avoid its pull (and destruction) nonetheless “move in ways that
imply they know the size of the black hole,” says Urry. “We want to understand
how that could be.”
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“‘Can you be a scientist and have a family?’ I’ve never been asked that by a man.” |
As one of four women in a physics department with 33
professors, and the first tenured female physicist at Yale, Urry recognizes
that “there are extra barriers facing women, and those will have to be
addressed. One of the first questions I get asked by young women interested in
becoming scientists is, 'Can you be a scientist and have a family?' I’ve never,
never been asked that by a man.” As an antidote, Urry makes sure to mention her
two daughters when she teaches a course or gives a talk. She is married to
fellow Yale astrophysicist Andrew Szymkowiak.
One of Urry’s goals is to see “a flood of people
taking physics,” including non-science students. Physics, Urry says, “teaches
you how to think logically and deductively. It’s the beginning of a very broad
spectrum of futures, from law to medicine to diplomacy to politics.” In some
countries, she says, students are told: “If you want to get anywhere in this
world, you take physics.”
Remembered
In 1939, at the World’s Fair in New York City, Mayor
Fiorello LaGuardia swore in Jane
Matilda Bolin '31LLB as the first African American female judge in U.S.
history. It was not Bolin’s first first: eight years earlier, she had been the first
African American woman to graduate from Yale Law School. Bolin, who died on
January 8 at her home in Queens, New York, at the age of 98, spent nearly 40
years as a judge in Family Court before reaching mandatory retirement age in
1978. “She entered new environs fearlessly, exploded old myths, and helped
transform American law with her pioneering spirit,” said current Law School
dean Harold Hongju Koh. She is survived by a son, a granddaughter, and a
great-granddaughter.
Elected
Alan Kazdin, the John M. Musser Professor of
Psychology, was elected from among five candidates to be the next president of
the American Psychological Association, the 150,000-member professional
organization for psychologists. Kazdin, who has directed the Yale Child Study
Center and now directs the Yale Parenting Center and Child Conduct Clinic, will
serve as president of the APA in 2008. Kazdin said on his election that he
wants the field of psychology “to play a more critical role in serving the
areas of diversity, children and families, health care, and social policy.”
Appointed
Fresh from his tenure as deputy secretary general of
the United Nations, Mark Malloch Brown is spending the spring term as a
Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Yale Center for the Study of
Globalization. Malloch Brown, a British national, was administrator of the
United Nations Development Programme from 1999 to 2005 and was appointed by
Kofi Annan as deputy secretary in April 2006. He stepped down with Annan in
December. He is perhaps best known for his clashes with John Bolton '70, '74JD,
the former U.S. ambassador to the UN. Malloch Brown will work on a book about
leadership in a globalized world during his fellowship. |
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