Sheila Rowan (physicist)


Sheila Rowan is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, and director of its Institute for Gravitational Research since 2009.

Education

Rowan was educated at the University of Glasgow where she received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1991 followed by a PhD in 1995 for research on gravitational waves supervised by James Hough.

Career

After her PhD, Rowan's work was split between the University of Glasgow and the Edward Ginzton Laboratory at Stanford University. Since 2003, she has been based solely in Glasgow, and in 2006 was appointed Professor of Experimental Physics.
In June 2016, Rowan was seconded to chief scientific advisor to the Scottish Government, a position vacant since December 2014, when Muffy Calder stood down.

Awards and honours

Rowan was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2008 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2018.
Rowan was awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize for Astronomy and Astrophysics in 2005, elected a Fellow of the Institute of Physics in 2006 and awarded Fellowship of the American Physical Society in 2012. She was awarded the Fred Hoyle Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics in 2016 in recognition of her pioneering research on aspects of the technology of gravitational wave observatories.
Rowan was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2011 Birthday Honours.
In 2016, Rowan and her team contributed to the 2016 Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, for their work on the first detection of gravitational waves, which was announced in February 2016..
In July 2019, Rowan was elected to the role of president-elect by the Institute of Physics. She will take up the post in October 2019 and will become president on 1 October 2021.