Daryl Haggard
, McGill Space Institute/Physics Department, McGill University
Research Focus
About Daryl
My research explores the extreme endpoints of matter in the Universe: black holes and neutron stars. I am PI on programs to identify electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational wave sources detected by LIGO-Virgo, including the 2017 discovery of the first neutron star merger GW170817, for which I co-led the identification of the first X-ray counterpart. This discovery was Science Magazine’s 2017 Breakthrough of the Year and my team was awarded a Top 10 Discovery of 2018 by Québec Science.
I also lead multi-wavelength, time domain studies of growing supermassive black holes, including Sagittarius A* and M87. I am a member of the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration, which reported the first direct image of a black hole’s shadow in 2019. I was honoured as La Presse’s Personalité de la semaine for my role in the discovery and am proud to be part of the EHT team awarded the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.
Honors
2021 - Group Achievement Award (A), UK Royal Astronomical Society (to the EHT Collab)
2020 - Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (to the EHT Collaboration)
2020 - McGill Principal’s Prize for Outstanding Emerging Researchers
2019-2024 - Canada Research Chair in Multi-messenger Astrophysics, Government of Canada
2017-2019 - CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research
2014 – 2016 - Kavli Frontiers Fellow, US National Academy of Science & Kavli Foundation
2010 – 2014 - CIERA Postdoctoral Fellow, Northwestern University
2005 – 2008 - NASA Jenkins Predoctoral Fellow, University of Washington
Education
Postdoc
CIERA, Northwestern University, 09/2010 - 07/2014
Ph.D.
Astronomy, University of Washington, 08/2010
Master's
Astronomy, University of Washington, 12/2006
Physics, San Francisco State University, 08/2004
Bachelor's
Philosophy, St. John's College, Santa Fe, 05/1995
