Areas of Expertise
- Cosmology
- Large-scale structure of the universe
Education
- Ph.D. Astrophysics, Princeton University, 1987
- B.S., Physics, Northwestern University, 1983
A member of the faculty since 1992, Prof. Ryden studies the formation, alignment, and shapes of galaxies, and the large-scale structure of the universe, and cosmology, including tests for dark energy, dark matter, and the properties of the primordial density fluctuations. She is internationally known for her textbook Introduction to Cosmology, which won the first Chambliss Astronomical Writing Award in 2006 from the American Astronomical Society, and is now in its second edition, and she co-authored Foundations of Astrophysics with Prof. Bradley Peterson, a beginning-level text in astrophysics for astronomy majors. She currently editor in chief of the Ohio State Astrophysics Series, a series of graduate level textbooks published by Cambridge University Press. The first two volumes are Interstellar & Intergalactic Medium by Prof. Ryden and Prof. Richard Pogge (2021) and Stellar Structure & Evolution by Prof. Marc Pinsonneault and Prof. Ryden (2023).