One of the best young astrophysicists in North America has found a home at West Virginia Universitya place where she can unlock the secrets of the universe and also enjoy a high-quality work-life balance.

Maura McLaughlin, who distinguished herself in 2006 by discovering a new, mysterious class of radio-bursting collapsed stars, has been named a 2008 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow.

She was one of only 23 physicists in the United States and Canada selected for the fellowship. Outside of physics, only 95 other early career researchers received the award in fields such as chemistry, biology and computer science.

As a Sloan Research Fellow, McLaughlin joins an extremely distinguished group. Since the awards began, 35 fellows have gone on to win the Nobel Prize, and 14 have received the Fields Medal, the top honor in mathematics.

This is an extraordinarily competitive award, involving nominations for most of the very best scientists of your generation,Paul L. Joskow, president of the Sloan Foundation, said in his award announcement letter to McLaughlin.

The fellowship includes a grant of $50,000 for a two-year period ($25,000 per year). Sloan Research Fellows may use their grants in a flexible and largely unrestricted manner to further their research, Joskow said.

Im honored the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has recognized the important work in astrophysics were doing at West Virginia University,said McLaughlin, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.Its exciting to receive recognition in my field and to be one of only a very few astronomers who earned this fellowship.

WVU President Mike Garrison added,Its a special moment for WVU when one of our finest young faculty members is singled outfor her accomplishments and her promise. Dr. McLaughlins groundbreaking astrophysics research has opened a whole new area of study at WVU and has earned international notice for her and for the students who work with her.

The Sloan Fellowship is but one of a long and growing list of McLaughlins accomplishments.

Her efforts in late 2003 to discover thefirst and only known double-pulsarsome 2,000 light years away from Earth gave physicists a powerful tool to conduct precise testing of Albert Einsteins general theory of relativity.

In 2006,McLaughlin led a team that discovered a new class of radio-bursting collapsed starsknown as Rotating Radio Transients, or RRATs, and was the lead author of a Nature paper announcing their discovery. Most recently, she led a research team that detected, for the first time, high-energy X-ray pulsations coming from these mysterious objects. The teams findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal in December.

We are honored to have Dr. McLaughlin among our many outstanding faculty members, and she is to be commended for earning a Sloan Research Fellowship,said Mary Ellen Mazey, dean of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.We are committed to providing a complete educational environment for undergraduate and graduate students that includes both cutting-edge research and outstanding teaching.

McLaughlin is playing a key role in the creation of a Center for Astrophysics at WVU . She was named a co-principal investigator in afive-year $490,000 Research Challenge Grantfrom the West Virginia Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research.

The grant is enabling WVU researchers to utilize world-class facilities for astronomy and astrophysics, particularly the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank. With its close proximity to Green Bank, WVU is positioned in one of the worlds prime locations for radio astronomy research.

McLaughlin, 35, is part of a growing trend among faculty at universities across the country of what is known as dual-career families. Her spouse, Duncan Lorimer, is also an assistant professor and astronomer in WVU s Department of Physics. Theyve worked together on the discovery of the double-pulsar, as well as other areas, although each has his and her own specific interests and research efforts. The couple has two small children and is featured in WVU s Dual Career Program (http://dualcareer.wvu.edu).

Dedicated to WVU s mission of increasing scientific knowledge across the state, McLaughlin and Lorimer are working closely with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory to establish the Pulsar Search Collaboratory. The collaboratory will engage West Virginia high school students and teachers in a massive search for new pulsars using data taken by McLaughlin and Lorimer over the summer of 2007 with the Green Bank Telescope. The project is funded through nearly $900,000 from the National Science Foundation.

WVU researchers currently have over 100 terabytes of data from these sky surveys that needs to be analyzed. Recruiting the help of state high school students has been lauded as an innovative way to sift through the survey information and make new discoveries, while getting young West Virginians excited about science and technology.

The Pulsar Search Collaboratory will give West Virginia high school students the chance to make groundbreaking discoveries like finding exotic pulsar binary systems, pulsars with planetary systems or pulsars spinning faster than currently thought possible,McLaughlin said.What would be really exciting is if we found a pulsar orbiting a black hole. This would allow us to make many new measurements and learn even more about the universe.

McLaughlin is considered by many to be a role model for young women interested in the sciences. She has spoken with the Girl Scouts and works to inspire undergraduate women to pursue careers in scientific fields.

McLaughlin is the second WVU researcherand only the second in the stateto receive a Sloan Research Fellowship. Mohindar Seehra, an Eberly Family Distinguished Professor in physics at WVU , received the award in 1973.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation provides grants for science, technology and the quality of American life. The goal of the Sloan Research Fellowship program is to enhance the careers of the very best young faculty members in selected fields of science at American and Canadian universities and colleges.

For the full list of winners or additional information, visithttp://www.sloan.org.