Vicky Kaspi | |
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| Born | Victoria Michelle Kaspi (1967-06-30)June 30, 1967 (age 57) |
| Alma mater | McGill University (BS) Princeton University (PhD) |
| Known for | Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment |
| Spouse | David Langleben |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Pulsars Neutron stars Astrophysics |
| Institutions | McGill University California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Thesis | Applications of pulsar timing (1993) |
| Doctoral advisor | Joseph Taylor |
| Doctoral students | Anne Archibald |
| Website | www |
Victoria Michelle Kaspi (born June 30, 1967) is a Canadianastrophysicist and a professor atMcGill University. Her research primarily concernsneutron stars andpulsars.[1]
Kaspi was born inAustin, Texas, but her family moved to Canada when she was seven years old.[1] She completed her undergraduate studies at McGill in 1989, and went toPrinceton University for her graduate studies, completing herPhD in 1993 supervised byNobel Prize-winning astrophysicistJoseph Taylor.[1][2]
After positions at theCalifornia Institute of Technology, theJet Propulsion Laboratory, and theMassachusetts Institute of Technology, she took a faculty position at McGill in 1999.[1] At McGill, she held one of McGill's firstCanada Research Chairs,[3] and in 2006 she was named theLorne Trottier Professor of Astrophysics.[4] She is also aFellow in theCanadian Institute for Advanced Research.[5]
Kaspi's observations of the pulsar associated withsupernova remnant G11.2–0.3 in the constellationSagittarius, using theChandra X-ray Observatory, showed that the pulsar was at the precise center of the supernova, which had beenobserved in 386 CE by the Chinese. This pulsar was only the second known pulsar to be associated with a supernova remnant, the first being the one in theCrab Nebula, and her studies greatly strengthened the conjectured relationship between pulsars andsupernovae. Additionally, this observation cast into doubt previous methods of dating pulsars by their spin rate; these methods gave the pulsar an age that was 12 times too high to match the supernova.[6]
Kaspi's research with theRossi X-ray Timing Explorer showed thatsoft gamma repeaters, astronomical sources of irregulargamma ray bursts, andanomalous X-ray pulsars, slowly rotating pulsars with highmagnetic fields, could both be explained asmagnetars.[5][7]
She also helped discover the pulsar with the fastest known rotation rate,PSR J1748-2446ad,[2] star clusters with a high concentration of pulsars,[2] and (using theGreen Bank Telescope) the "cosmic recycling" of a slow-spinning pulsar into a much fastermillisecond pulsar.[8][9]
Kaspi is Jewish.[29] Her husband, David Langleben, is acardiologist at McGill[3] and at theSir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital in Montreal.[4]
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