Lucy Marie Ziurys (born May 6, 1957)^[1] is an Americanastrochemist known for her work on high-resolution molecularspectroscopy. She is Regent's Professor of Chemistry & Biology and of Astronomy at theUniversity of Arizona.^[2]

Ziurys's work has discovered new molecules in interstellar space and in carbon-richcircumstellar envelopes, found unexpectedly long molecular lifetimes inplanetary nebulae,^[3] and made pioneering high-resolutionsubmillimeter astronomy observations ofsupermassive black holes usingvery-long-baseline interferometry.^[4] In earthbound experiments, she has also found models for the interstellar creation ofbuckminsterfullerene.^[5]

Ziurys is originally fromAnnapolis, Maryland. She majored in chemistry, chemical physics, and physics atRice University, graduatingsumma cum laude in 1978. She went to theUniversity of California, Berkeley for graduate study inphysical chemistry, completing a Ph.D. in 1984 under the supervision ofRichard J. Saykally.^[1]

After postdoctoral researchUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst, working in theFive College Radio Astronomy Observatory, she joined theArizona State University Department of Chemistry in 1988. She moved to the University of Arizona in 1997. At the University of Arizona, she directed theArizona Radio Observatory from 2000 to 2016.^[1] She was named Regent's Professor in 2019^[3]

In 2008, Ziurys was named aFellow of the American Physical Society (APS), after a nomination from the APS Division of Atomic, Molecular & Optical Physics, "for forefront contributions in molecular spectroscopy leading to new discoveries and understanding of molecules in interstellar and circumstellar environments".^[6]

In 2015, Ziurys won the Barbara Mez-Starck Prize "for her microwave spectroscopic studies of transition metal compounds in high spin states as well as for her laboratory investigations with interplay with astrophysics, astrochemistry, and astrobiology".^[7] She was the 2019 winner of the Laboratory Astrophysics Prize, the highest honor of the Laboratory Astrophysics Division of theAmerican Astronomical Society.^[8]

She was part of theEvent Horizon Telescope team, which won the 2020Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.^[9]

• Ziurys Research Group

• 1957 births
• Living people
• Astrochemists
• 20th-century American chemists
• 21st-century American chemists
• American women chemists
• American women astronomers
• Rice University alumni
• UC Berkeley College of Chemistry alumni
• Arizona State University faculty
• University of Arizona faculty
• Fellows of the American Physical Society
• American women academics
• 20th-century American women scientists
• 21st-century American women scientists
• Chemists from Maryland

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