Professor Vicky Kalogera has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies. Kalogera is the Daniel I. Linzer Distinguished University Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Northwestern University and director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA).
A leading astrophysicist for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration, Kalogera was a key member of the international team that first detected gravitational waves in 2015 from the collision of two black holes. She also contributed to groundbreaking work leading to predictions and eventual detection of the collision of two neutron stars, detected using both gravitational waves and light. Through her research, Kalogera addresses questions about the origins of black holes and neutron stars, and employs methods from computer science, statistics and applied mathematics. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, she recently was named a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
The Academy was founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin and others who believed the new republic should honor exceptionally accomplished individuals and engage them in advancing the public good. The Academy’s dual mission remains essentially the same 240 years later with honorees from increasingly diverse fields and with the work now focused on the arts and humanities, democracy and justice, education, global affairs and science.
The 2021 class includes CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, civil rights activist and math literacy pioneer Robert Moses, NASA atmospheric scientist Anne Thompson and Oprah Winfrey.
Visit Professor Vicky Kalogera’s website to learn more about her research.