Barbara Sue Ryden (born May 2, 1961) is an American astrophysicist who is a Professor of Astronomy at Ohio State University.
[1] She moved to Princeton University as a doctoral student, where she worked alongside James Gunn.
[5][6] Her research made use of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and various numerical simulations.
[7] She has shown that the galactic disks at the centre of spiral galaxies are more elliptical than circular.
[8] Ryden has written several astronomy textbooks, including Introduction to Cosmology,[9] Interstellar and Intergalactic Medium,[10] and Foundations of Astrophysics.