Yanqin Wu (Chinese: 武延庆) is a theoretical astrophysicist whose research concerns planet formation, protoplanetary disks, the effects on planets of photoevaporation, orbital resonance, and planetary migration, and the classification and distribution of exoplanets.
[1][2] She has theorized that planetary collisions have culled initially-crowded systems until what remains is often on the edge of chaos,[3] and used oscillations in the rings of Saturn to study the past history of the Solar System.
[4] Educated in China and the US, she has worked in England and Canada, where she is a professor in the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics of the University of Toronto.
Her dissertation, Excitation and Saturation of White Dwarf Pulsation, was supervised by Peter Goldreich.
[2] She is the 2023 recipient of the CAP-CRM Prize in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics of the Canadian Association of Physicists and Centre de Recherches Mathématiques.