Belinda Jane Wilkes is a Senior Astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, and former director of the Chandra X-ray Center.

[1] She was born in Staffordshire, England and grew up in Albrighton, Shropshire, attending Wolverhampton Girls' High School before obtaining a BSc.

Her research relates to multi-wavelength studies of quasars: galaxies containing super-massive black holes at their centers and the most luminous sources in the Universe.

In 2020 she was named a fellow of the American Physical Society "for significant contributions to the understanding of active galactic nuclei, including their emission mechanisms and evolutionary pathways, and for innovative leadership of the Chandra X-ray Observatory".

[9] In 2021 she was named a fellow of the American Astronomical Society "For dedicated leadership of the astronomical community as director of the Chandra X-ray Center", and was named to the 2021 class of Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.