People

Biography

Tiffany Nichols is a Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellow and LSST-DA Catalyst Fellow in the Departments of History and Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. She focuses on the intersection of the history of physics, astrophysics, and astronomy, environmental history, and legal history.  Nichols’s research focuses on how physicists and astronomers understand noise and disturbances originating from the natural and built environment and its effects on highly precise and sensitive instruments and research endeavors, such as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). She holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and J.D. from the University of Virginia and an A.M. and Ph.D. in History of Science from Harvard University, where she was a graduate student member of the Black Hole Initiative, advised by Peter Galison. Nichols also has extensive experience in intellectual property litigation and related areas of law prior to her Ph.D. studies. She is currently advised by Laura Edwards, Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty and Professor of History in the Department of History and Michael Strauss, Chair of the Department of Astrophysical Sciences and Professor of Astrophysical Sciences.

Biography

Jue Liu comes from China, and he got a Ph.D. degree at Sun Yat-sen University in 2018. His research interests include geometric analysis and mathematical general relativity. He had deep studies in the weak cosmic censorship conjecture, one of the fundamental problems in the dynamics of black holes, and proved that the spherical naked singularities constructed by Christodoulou are unstable even under gravitational perturbations. Recently he is trying to find some physical quantity such as quasilocal mass which is useful to describe the dynamics of spacetime in particular situations. One such example is the Penrose inequality, which can indirectly verify the weak cosmic censorship conjecture from the view of spacelike hypersurfaces embedded in spacetime.

Biography

I am a theorist with training in high-energy physics and general relativity. I am broadly interested in understanding physical phenomena that arise at the experimental frontier, especially in relativistic astrophysics and gravity. I am particularly excited to make contact between theory and observation and to focus on areas where my scientific contributions can have a significant impact.

Most recently, I have delved into the emerging field of black hole imaging, in an effort to interpret the first black hole images released by the Event Horizon Telescope and to predict interesting features that will be the target of future observations, such as the black hole photon ring.

I completed my Ph.D. in Physics at Harvard University in 2017. I joined the Princeton Gravity Initiative as an Associate Research Scholar in 2020, after spending 3 years as a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows.

Biography

I am an astrophysicist working on the interface of theory and observations. My primary focus is black hole astrophysics, with a particular interest in the Milky Way’s galactic center black hole Sagittarius A* and its accretion. My research combines observational studies, data analysis algorithm development, numerical simulations, and pen-and-paper theoretical calculations.

Previously I have also worked on exoplanets, neutrino physics, and particle theory.

Biography

Professor Aghil Alaee Khangha joined the Mathematics department at Clark University in fall 2020. Before joining Clark University, he was a Black Hole Initiative fellow at Harvard University (2019-2020); a postdoctoral fellow at the Center of Mathematical Sciences and Applications at Harvard University (2018-2019); a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto (2017-2018); and a Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alberta (2015-2017). He received his doctorate in mathematics, with distinction, from Memorial University in December 2015.

Professor Alaee’s research focuses on geometric analysis and mathematical relativity. He investigates conjectures in general relativity — such as existence, uniqueness, and stability — and the formation of black holes using geometric analysis, which lies at the intersection of developments in differential geometry, partial differential equations, and modern physics. He has proved several geometric inequalities involving total energy, quasi-local energy, area of horizon, angular momentum, and charges of black holes.

Professor Alaee taught a variety of undergraduate mathematics courses at Clark University, Harvard University, University of Toronto, University of Alberta, and Memorial University.

Biography

Pate seeks a fundamental description of our universe that successfully incorporates the quantum-mechanical nature of gravity. Specifically, she investigates the extent to which gravitational systems admit holographic descriptions. In such a description, the entire dynamics of a gravitational system is captured equivalently by an alternate non-gravitational system that exists in fewer dimensions. Pate currently focuses on extensions of the holographic paradigm beyond the well-studied context of negatively-curved spacetimes to asymptotically flat spacetimes, which are a formal representation of the isolated gravitational systems that appear in nature. To date, her work has uncovered an infinite number of new symmetries of gravity in the asymptotically flat context and additionally established the existence of analogues of these symmetries for any fundamental force. Beyond critically assessing the holographic paradigm, Pate will use her investigation of quantum gravity in asymptotically flat spacetimes to attack fundamental questions of physics, including “What do we predict to observe at a particle collider that probes quantum gravitational interactions?” and “Are strings, as opposed to particles, the fundamental building blocks of our universe?”.

Biography

I have lived in nine countries, travelled to over seventy, and recently moved with my husband and one-year-old son from Sweden/Pakistan to Stamford, CT, USA. It is my goal to connect people around the world by telling stories from different cultures.

I write as Shi Naseer. My first novel, The Cry of the Silkworm, is forthcoming first in the UK and Commonwealth countries in June 2024 with Atlantic Books/Allen&Unwin. It is both a coming-of-age story and a revenge story, about a grief-stricken young girl in turn-of-the-century China, and reveals the devastating consequences of the one-child policy. I am represented by Deborah Schneider of Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents.

I hold a PhD in theoretical physics from Harvard University. My thesis, Analytical Steps Towards the Observation of High-Spin Black Holes, was written under the supervision of Prof. Andy Strominger. 

Biography

I am a Junior Professor at the Universität Heidelberg. Before that I was a Bateman instructor at Caltech.

My research is in differential geometry, Teichmüller theory, and geometric structures. I am also interested in general relativity and other connections to physics.

In spring 2023, I am teaching Differential Geometry I at Heidelberg.

I am a contributor to the project Organic Materials by Geometrical Design at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies.

I am co-organizing Heidelberg’s HEGL community seminar.

Biography

I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany. I’m interested in radioastronomy, and in physics of compact astronomical objects such as neutron stars and black holes. My work focuses on the Event Horizon Telescope project, for which I am involved in the data set reduction, data analysis, as well as in a bunch of theoretical and observational sub-projects.

Biography

Daniel Kapec is a postdoctoral scholar at the Harvard Center of Mathematical Sciences and Applications (CMSA). He graduated from Yale College in 2012 with degrees in Physics and Mathematics, and received his PhD in Theoretical Physics from Harvard University in 2018. From 2018-2021, Dan was a member of the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. Around the house, Dan serves as a STEM Tutor, an Outings Tutor, and as a co-coordinator of the Conversations with Kirkland speaker series.

Biography

Elizabeth “Mina” Himwich is a graduate student in the Physics Department at Harvard University. Her doctoral advisor is Andy Strominger.  She is also a member of the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration working on the analytic description of black hole images. Her research involves various aspects of quantum field theory, particle physics, and gravity.

Biography

Feraz works primarily at the intersection of philosophy and science, with a particular focus on issues that arise in physics. Most recently, he has worked on questions of probability in primordial cosmology and on philosophical aspects of black hole physics.

Biography

Dr. Christian joined Fairfield’s Physics Department from the University of Arizona Tucson, where he served as the Steward Observatory Prize Fellow in Theoretical and Computational Astrophysics. He earned both his MA and PhD in astronomy and astrophysics from Harvard University, and his BA in physics and astrophysics from the University of California, Berkeley. A member of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, Dr. Christian’s main research interests include black holes, gravitational waves, general relativity, classical mechanics, and classroom pedagogical methods.

Biography

I am a Rosenberg Scholar and Assistant Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences (CMS) and by courtesy in Electrical Engineering and Astronomy at Caltech in Pasadena, California. My research focuses on computational imaging: designing systems that tightly integrate algorithm and sensor design, making it possible to observe phenomena previously difficult or impossible to measure with traditional approaches. My group at Caltech combines ideas from signal processing, computer vision, machine learning, and physics to find and exploit hidden signals for both scientific discovery and technological innovation.

Biography

I am a fellow at the Princeton University Gravity Initiative. From 2019-2022 I was a NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP) and Einstein Fellow at the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science. I am a member of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration.

I study the extreme environments just outside the event horizons of supermassive black holes, particularly in the galactic center Sgr A*  and M87. I use supercomputer simulations to study the flow of plasma as it falls into the black hole and is launched outward in relativistic jets. I also develop new approaches for testing theoretical predictions with new methods of imaging these black holes with the EHT.

I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I received a BA in Physics with a secondary concentration in Medieval studies from Carleton College in 2013, and I earned a Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University in 2019. At Harvard, I worked at the Black Hole Initative; I was advised by Ramesh Narayan, Shep Doeleman and Michael Johnson.

I am a proud member of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Outlist of LGBTQIA+ members of the astronomical community.

Biography

Koushik Chatterjee completed his undergraduate degree in India and finished his Ph.D. at the University of Amsterdam in 2020. His work focuses on black hole accretion and jet propagation and he performs large-scale numerical simulations as well as algorithm and code development. His research interests lie in investigating the complex physics of astrophysical jets and disks to interpret the observed multiwavelength electromagnetic emission from black hole systems. To generate the simulations and synthetic observations, he works with the state-of-the-art GPU-accelerated GRMHD code H-AMR and the GR ray-tracing code BHOSS.

Hi, I’m Hsin-Yu Chen (陳欣榆). I came from Taiwan, and spent the first 22 years of my life in a beautiful area 木柵 , Taipei. I am an assistant professor at the Department of Physics at the UT Austin. If you’re interested in joining my group, please feel free to reach out over email.

I got my PhD from the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, and I was a NASA Einstein-MIT Kavli Institute Fellow and a Black Hole Initiative Fellow at Harvard University.

Although I love star gazing, I have been involved with an entirely different approach to observe the Universe–detecting the gravitational waves from compact binary coalescences. My thesis research focuses on Gravitational-Wave Multi-messenger Astronomy, and I’m a member of the LIGO scientific collaboration. I also joined the Dark Energy Survey-Gravitational Wave working group to haunt for the electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational-wave signals.

Biography

I am a fourth-year Peirce Fellowship graduate student at Harvard University, working with Prof. Charlie Conroy. I have worked with Prof. Smadar Naoz, Prof. Michael Fitzgerald, and Prof. Jim Fuller (at the California Institute of Technology) throughout my undergraduate degree at UCLA. I am originally from Sydney, Australia.

I was recently a full-time Research Analyst during the first half of 2023 at the Simons Foundation’s Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Astrophysics (CCA) as part of their Pre-Doctoral Program. I worked with Matteo Cantiello, Mathieu Renzo, and Jared Goldberg.

Biography

Connemara Doran, PhD, is Science Historian at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) in Arlington, Virginia, and holds a National Academy of Sciences – National Research Council (NAS-NRC) Research Associateship. Dr. Doran is a historian of modern science and technology, specializing in the history and philosophy of the physical and mathematical sciences, in particular on the history of astronomy and cosmology, mathematical physics, space science and technology, energy resources, environmental sciences, and climate science. Her research examines developments, from the late 19^th-century to the early 21^st-century, in theoretical and experimental physics basic research across the fields of relativity, quantum mechanics, astrophysics, cosmology, and metrology. She has researched and published on the development of scientific instruments and space technology that enabled transformative basic research in Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) cosmology (“Instrumentalizing and Visualizing the Cosmic First Light,” published in 2021); and on the creation of the hydrogen maser atomic clock and its use in testing theories of gravity in the 1976 Gravity Probe A rocket experiment carried out by NASA and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (in press).

Dr. Doran extensively researched and has published on the groundbreaking contributions of the fin-de-siècle French mathematician, engineer, physicist, and philosopher, Henri Poincaré. One article, “Poincaré’s Path to Uniformization” (published in 2018), was an invited contribution to a peer-reviewed mathematics volume. In that article, Dr. Doran explained the origins of a foundational branch of mathematics that brought together algebra, geometry, and analysis in an entirely new and transformative way in the late 19^th century. She used this historical case to explain how innovation and discovery can occur in pure mathematics, and how conceptual mathematical advance can occur as both a rupture and a continuity with previous research. This insight is not unique to pure mathematics, but also is applicable to mathematical, theoretical, and experimental physics and instrumentation. In another article, “Poincaré’s mathematical creations in search of the ‘true relations of things’” (also published in 2018), Dr. Doran analyzed how Poincaré attended to the subtle features of space and time within physics by creating subtle mathematical approaches to capturing the empirically-based “true relations” of spacetime – relations that persist regardless of the choice of spatial metric or of a change in physical theory. In this way, Poincaré created mathematical structures still used today to study gravitational and quantum phenomena and the multifold challenges of dynamical systems.

Throughout her career, Dr. Doran has worked with government agencies and academic research groups. She has completed a book manuscript on the history of U.S. energy systems in the long 20^th century, including the role of hydraulic fracturing and debates regarding peak supply and peak demand for oil. As Lecturer at Harvard University, Dr. Doran created and taught courses on the history of the physical sciences from the 17^th to the early 20^th centuries and on the history of environmental and climate science in the U.S. and globally. As a Guggenheim Fellow at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, she researched experimental aspects of NASA’s COBE and WMAP space missions: the scientific instruments created (detectors and amplifiers, microwave radiometers, cryogenic cooling technologies); the computational algorithms and statistical methods employed for data analysis and visualization production; and the dynamic interactions among scientist principal investigators, science team members, engineers, NASA administrators, university laboratories, and scientific funding agencies.
 

Biography

I am a theoretical physicist who studies black holes. I am interested in leveraging features of the spacetime geometry and the radiation sourced near black holes to determine properties of black holes we can detect. I have focused on characterizing universal observational signatures of black holes using analytic tools such as the analysis of critical null geodesics, and the emergent conformal symmetry of the near horizon region of rapidly rotating black holes.

I competed my Ph.D. in Physics at Harvard University in May 2021 and joined the Princeton Gravity Initiative as an Associate Research Scholar in September 2021.

Biography

Alfredo is a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. His research lies at the crossroads between quantum theory and classical gravity. In particular, he is adapting novel techniques from the S-Matrix program to the study of classical solutions in general relativity such as those describing spinning black holes, a correspondence that also sheds light on the puzzle of higher-spin particles. He is currently interested in observational signatures of these classical processes, which may be measured via gravitational waves such as the ones to be detected by LIGO/LISA, but also through electromagnetic radiation. Furthermore, he is studying the asymptotic structure of spacetime and its connection to the infrared problem of quantum theory, as well as novel geometrical structures underlying scattering amplitudes in a variety of theories.