Amy Barger

Amy J. Barger (born January 18, 1971) is an American astronomer whose discoveries have most concerned quasars, black holes, and other far distant objects. She helped show that the activity of black holes in nearby galaxies was greater and more recent than expected. She also worked with others on discoveries concerning stellar activity in distant galaxies. She currently is a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Barger earned a Ph.D. in Astronomy in 1997 from King's College, University of Cambridge where she was a Marshall scholar. Following which she worked on the Morphs collaboration studying the formation and morphologies of distant galaxies. She has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the 2001 Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy and the 2002 Pierce Prize of the American Astronomical Society, the 2007 Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award of the American Physical Society and a 2002 Alfred P. Sloan and a 2003 David and Lucille Packard fellowships. In 2017 she was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.