Maura Ann McLaughlin (born 1972) is an astrophysics professor at

West Virginia University West Virginia University (WVU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia, United States. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Ins ...

Morgantown, West Virginia Morgantown is a city in Monongalia County, West Virginia, United States, and its county seat. It is situated along the Monongahela River in North Central West Virginia and is the home of West Virginia University. The population was 30,347 at the 2 ...

known for her work on

fast radio burst In radio astronomy, a fast radio burst (FRB) is a transient radio wave of length ranging from a fraction of a millisecond, for an ultra-fast radio burst, to 3 seconds, caused by a high-energy astrophysical process as yet not understood. Astronome ...

s (FRBs).

Education

McLaughlin grew up in

Oreland, Pennsylvania Oreland is a United States census-designated place (CDP) in Springfield and Upper Dublin townships, just outside the Chestnut Hill and Mount Airy areas of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Oreland has a ZIP code of 19075, and the p ...

. She received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

degree in

Astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...

and

Astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline, James Keeler, said, astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the ...

from the

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

in 1994. She obtained a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in Astronomy and Space Sciences from

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

in 2001 advised by James M. Cordes.

Career and research

McLaughlin is known for her work on furthering the research on

gravitational wave Gravitational waves are oscillations of the gravitational field that Wave propagation, travel through space at the speed of light; they are generated by the relative motion of gravity, gravitating masses. They were proposed by Oliver Heaviside i ...

s and for her dedication to the Pulsar Search Collaboratory. McLaughlin is a professor in Astronomy and Physics at West Virginia University. McLaughlin served as chair of the

North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) is a consortium of astronomers who share a common goal of detecting gravitational waves via regular observations of an ensemble of millisecond pulsars using the Green Bank ...

(NANOGrav) collaboration. The team was originally funded by a 6.5 million dollar award given to them by the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

as part of the Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE) program and is now an

(NSF) Physics Frontier Center. McLaughlin was also fundamental in the discovery of the double-pulsar system as well as in the discovery of several new pulsars. McLaughlin dedicates her time to the Pulsar Search Collaboratory located in

Green Bank, West Virginia Green Bank is a census-designated place in Pocahontas County in West Virginia's Potomac Highlands inside the Allegheny Mountain Range. Green Bank is located along WV 28. Green Bank is home to the Green Bank Observatory and is also close to t ...

. The Pulsar Search Collaboratory involves high school students in a collaborative effort with the

National Radio Astronomy Observatory The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a federally funded research and development center of the United States National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. for the purpose of radi ...

(NRAO) to further information and discover new pulsars. McLaughlin conducts her research on pulsars using the

Green Bank Telescope The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in Green Bank, West Virginia, US is the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope, surpassing the Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope in Germany. The Green Bank site was part of the National Rad ...

, the

Arecibo Observatory The Arecibo Observatory, also known as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) and formerly known as the Arecibo Ionosphere Observatory, is an observatory in Barrio Esperanza, Arecibo, Puerto Rico owned by the US National Science F ...

and previously the

Jodrell Bank Observatory Jodrell Bank Observatory ( ) in Cheshire, England hosts a number of radio telescopes as part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The observatory was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell, a radio as ...

at the

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

Awards and honors

McLaughlin was named a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

in 2021 and a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

in 2024. Other awards and honours include: * Cottrell Scholar Award * Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship * PIRE Program Award * In 2023 she was awarded the

Shaw Prize The Shaw Prize is a set of three annual awards presented by the Shaw Prize Foundation in the fields of astronomy, medicine and life sciences, and mathematical sciences. Established in 2002 in Hong Kong, by Hong Kong entertainment mogul and p ...

in Astronomy for co-discovery of FRBs

Personal life

McLaughlin is married to Duncan Lorimer, a physics professor also at West Virginia University, with whom she has three children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McLaughlin, Maura Living people American women astrophysicists American astrophysicists West Virginia University faculty Pennsylvania State University alumni Cornell University alumni Fellows of the American Physical Society 1972 births