Emily Levesque

Emily Levesque explores how the most massive stars in the universe evolve and die and how technology is changing the stories we tell about science and the cosmos. As an associate professor at the University of Washington in Seattle she currently leads a research group specializing in “the weirdest stars in the universe” and has authored two textbooks on stellar physics. Her critically-acclaimed popular science book, The Last Stargazers, shares the stories of life as a professional astronomer and explores the crucial role of human curiosity in a rapidly-changing field. The Last Stargazers was a finalist for the 2021 PEN E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and the 2021 Royal Society Science Book Prize.

Levesque has received the American Astronomical Society’s 2014 Annie Jump Cannon Award and 2020 Newton Lacy Pierce Prize for outstanding achievement in observational astronomical research. She is also a 2017 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in Physics, a 2018 Kavli Fellow, a 2019 Cottrell Scholar, a recipient of the Gold Medal of Honorary Patronage from Trinity University’s Philosophical Society, and a Fulbright U.S. Scholar

She received her PhD in astronomy from the University of Hawaii and her bachelors degree in physics from MIT.