Becky Smethurst

Rebecca Smethurst is a British astrophysicist, author, and YouTuber who is a Junior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. She was the recipient of the 2020 Caroline Herschel Prize Lectureship awarded by the Royal Astronomical Society as well as the 2020 Mary Somerville Medal and Prize awarded by the Institute of Physics. As a researcher, Smethurst studies the role that supermassive black holes play in inhibiting different types of galaxies from forming stars. She is a member of the Galaxy Zoo collaboration run by her doctoral advisor Chris Lintott. Smethurst hosts her own YouTube channel called Dr. Becky where she posts science communication videos related to astronomy research and amateur astronomy. She has also written a popular science book titled Space: 10 Things You Should Know.