George Washington University Professor of Physics Chryssa Kouveliotou, a pioneer in the field of astrophysics, is the recipient of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific’s (ASP) most prestigious award, the Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal.
The award was established by philanthropist and patroness of astronomy Catherine Wolfe Bruce. The ASP presents the medal annually to a professional astronomer in recognition of a lifetime of outstanding achievement and contributions to astrophysics research.
Kouveliotou is a recognized leader in the field of high-energy astrophysics, having made groundbreaking discoveries and landmark contributions to the nature and origins of gamma-ray sources, in particular magnetars and gamma-ray bursts.
She has been at the forefront of research in the study of gamma-ray sources starting with her doctoral thesis in 1981. Kouveliotou ultimately received global recognition for her study of gamma-ray bursts, and the landmark discovery that there are two distinct populations of these events, based on their duration and their photon energy. In the early 1990s, Kouveliotou discovered that short, but exceptionally bright, bursts of gamma rays were coming from neutron stars with especially strong magnetic fields. Called “magnetars,” this class of neutron stars was theoretically predicted by astrophysicists around the same time, opening a whole new field of study that Kouveliotou has led for three decades.