Rosemary F. Wyse

Biosketch

Rosemary F. Wyse, PhD, is Alumni Centennial Professor in the William H. Miller III Department of Physics and Astronomy at the Johns Hopkins University. She earned her BSc in Physics with Astrophysics from Queen Mary, University of London, and her PhD from Cambridge University. She was a postdoctoral fellow primarily at the University of California, Berkeley, then joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins in 1988. She received an honorary Doctor of Science from her alma mater, Queen Mary, in 2017. She is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Astronomical Society and the Royal Astronomical Society. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Awards include the Dirk Brouwer Career Award from the American Astronomical Society, Division of Dynamical Astronomy and the Annie Jump Cannon Award from the American Association of University Women.

Research Interests

Dr. Wyse’s research seeks to understand the physical processes driving the formation and evolution of galaxies, including our own Milky Way system. Her studies employ both theoretical and observational approaches, and focus on interpretation of the motions and chemical abundances of individual stars within galaxies. The nature of dark matter strongly influences the rate of growth of galaxies and indeed the mass distribution within galaxies. The predictions for these properties from models with different assumed types of dark matter can be tested with current and near-future surveys of stars, within not just the Milky Way but also within our nearest large neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, and their retinues of satellite galaxies. Thus the properties of stars can constrain the nature of dark matter. This forms a major part of Dr Wyse's current effort.