President & High School Outreach Chair

Cecilia  McGough is an astronomer, activist, and writer. Cecilia is a Penn State Schreyer Honors College Scholar pursuing a major in both Astronomy&Astrophysics and Physics. Cecilia is the founder and current president of the Penn State Pulsar Search Collaboratory. Through the Pulsar Search Collaboratory, she has been participating in pulsar research continuously since December of 2010: co-discovering pulsar J1930-1852 with the widest orbit ever observed around another neutron star, competing in the International Space Olympics held in Russia, and co-authoring her research in the Astrophysics Journal. 

Cecilia is a strong activist in fighting against the negative stigma towards mental illness. She is the founder of the first Students With Schizophrenia Chapter to help empower university students suffering from schizophrenia and also spread awareness of the mental illness. People usually first hear the word “schizophrenia” through the media which grossly over sensationalizes and misrepresents the majority of people suffering from schizophrenia. In response, Cecilia is also a writer with the purpose to educate her readers and to help break the current image of schizophrenia through her works.  

Follow Cecilia’s Treatment Blog: I Am Not A Monster: Schizophrenia

CONTACT: cam6261@psu.edu