Marta Burgay

Marta Burgay (born 30 November 1976, Turin) is an Italian radio astronomer. Her initial claim to fame was being the discoverer of PSR J0737-3039, the first double pulsar (two pulsars orbiting each other), through using the 64-metre Parkes radio telescope in Australia. In 2000, she graduated from University of Bologna with a Laurea degree in Astronomy. In 2004 she obtained her Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Bologna.

Awards and honours Her thesis on radio pulsars won the 2005 Pietro Tacchini Prize, awarded by the Italian Astronomical Society for the best Ph.D. thesis. In 2005, she was part of the international group PulSE (Pulsar Science in Europe) awarded the Descartes Prize for "Excellence in collaborative scientific research" In 2006, she became the first winner of the IUPAP's Young Scientists Prize in Astrophysics award. In 2006, she was awarded the SIGRAV prize for contribution to General Relativity and Gravitational Astrophysics. In 2010, she was honoured with the Vainu Bappu Gold Medal by the Astronomical Society of India. Asteroid 198634 Burgaymarta, discovered at Vallemare di Borbona in 2005, was named in her honour