Black Hole Initiative - Harvard University

BHI graduate student Hyerin Cho, BHI fellow Cora Prather, BHI P*s Ramesh Narayan and Priya Natarajan, and BHI alumni Kung-Yi Su and Angelo Ricarte have recently published a new paper.

https://bit.ly/4wtxiuG

Bridging Scales in Black Hole Accretion and Feedback: Subgrid Prescription from First Principles

Publication: The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 1002, Issue 2
Publication Date: May 2026
Authors: Hyerin Cho, Cora Prather, Ramesh Narayan, Kung-Yi Su, Angelo Ricarte, Priyamvada Natarajan and Antonio J. Porras-Valverde

Understanding how supermassive black holes (BHs) couple to their host galaxies across a vast spatial and temporal dynamic range remains a central challenge in galaxy evolution.

BHI Fellow Sasha Plavin has published a new paper, and the work was recently featured by EarthSky.

The article explores how interstellar turbulence in the Milky Way can distort light, offering new insight into how we observe the universe.

More details on the paper coming soon!

https://bit.ly/4uCnCNt

That’s a wrap on our 2026 conference! The tote bags are packed, the programs are well-thumbed, and the conversations are still going. Thank you to everyone who joined us for such a thoughtful and memorable few days. We’re already looking forward to next year.
If you weren’t able to attend: make sure to check out our YouTube channel this summer!

✨We’re excited to announce that author Gautam Satishchandran (Princeton University) will be joining us as a speaker at our 9th Annual Conference. ✨

I am a postdoctoral fellow at the Princeton Gravity Initiative.

In 2015, I received a B.S. in both Biochemistry and Physics at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst. I received my masters in Physics in 2017 and Ph.D. in Physics in 2022 under the advisement Prof. Robert Wald at the University of Chicago Enrico Fermi Institute.

My interests are broadly in general relativity, quantum field theory in curved spacetimes and quantum gravity ranging from fundamental properties of scattering and black holes to tabletop experiments in quantum gravity.

Outside of my research, I am passionate about teaching, communicating science to the general public, and building a more inclusive, equitable scientific community.

✨We’re excited to announce that author Mareki Honma (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan) will be joining us as a speaker at our 9th Annual Conference. ✨

Mareki Honma received PhD in astronomy from the University of Tokyo in 1999. Since then, he has been research staff at VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry) group in NAOJ (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan) and now serves as the director of Mizusawa VLBI Observatory of NAOJ. His main interest is radio astronomy based on ultra-high angular resolution obtained by VLBI. He has been leading the Japanese VERA (VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry) project to explore the 3-dimensional structure of the Milky Way Galaxy. He has been a member of the EHT collaboration to investigate super-massive black holes at galactic centers, and currently serves as one of the EHT board members representing NAOJ.

✨We’re excited to announce that author Elias Most (Caltech) will be joining us as a speaker at our 9th Annual Conference. ✨

I am a computational and theoretical astrophysicist interested in the physics of compact objects, such as neutron stars and black holes. My interests revolve around questions of fundamental physics at the intersection of gravitational, nuclear and plasma astrophysics.

Recently, I started a position as Assistant Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics at the California Institute of Technology. I am a member of the TAPIR group.
Before moving to California, I was the John Archibald Wheeler postdoctoral fellow at the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science, the Princeton Gravity Initiative and a five-year member of the Institute for Advanced Study. Previously, I was a predoctoral fellow at the Center for Computational Astrophysics at the Flatiron Institute in New York and a graduate student at Goethe University Frankfurt in Germany.

✨We’re excited to announce that author Eleanor Knox (Kings College London) will be joining us as a speaker at our 9th Annual Conference. ✨

​I'm a Professor of Philosophy at King's College London specializing in the philosophy of physics.
​
Much of my work focuses on the foundations of spacetime physics. I advocate a view I call Spacetime Functionalism, which I think solves problems in classical theories as well as dealing with the challenges to standard accounts raised by emergent spacetime structure in theories of quantum gravity.

I'm also interested in relationships between theories. I've argued that the kind of novelty that seems to be involved in cases that physicists call 'emergent' is explanatory novelty, arising from particular kinds of changes of variables between theoretical description.

✨We’re excited to announce that author Stefan Gillessen (Max-Planck-Gesellschaft) will be joining us as a speaker at our 9th Annual Conference. ✨

Dr. Stefan Gillessen recently won the prestigious Von Seeliger Award, which is named after a pioneering figure in astronomy and celebrates outstanding lecturers.

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✨We’re excited to announce that author Scott Ransom (National Radio Astronomy Observatory) will be joining us as a speaker at our 9th Annual Conference. ✨

I'm a staff astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Charlottesville, Virginia and a Research Professor in the Astronomy Dept at the University of Virginia (UVA) specializing in pulsars. I also work on FRBs as part of the CHIME/FRB collaboration.

Most of my research recently has focused on detecting and studying nanoHertz-frequency gravitational waves using millisecond pulsars as part of NANOGrav. I was one of the founding members of NANOGrav, and its Chair for four years.

I also focus on finding new pulsars, especially exotic binary and millisecond pulsar systems in globular clusters, and using them to do cool basic physics, like testing gravity and constraining the equation of state of ultra-dense matter.

✨We’re excited to announce that author David Wallace (University of Pittsburgh) will be joining us as a speaker at our 9th Annual Conference. ✨

I am a philosopher and physicist at the University of Pittsburgh, where I hold the Mellon Chair in Philosophy of Science with joint appointments in the Department of Philosophy and the Department of History and Philosophy of Science. Before coming to Pitt, I spent twenty-two years at the University of Oxford as student, researcher and faculty, and then three years at the University of Southern California.

My original training was in theoretical physics: I took a Physics PhD (also at Oxford) before my interests took me towards more conceptual and foundational questions in physics, and from there into philosophy.

My research interests are mostly in the philosophy of physics. I've been particularly active in trying to develop and defend the Everett interpretation of quantum theory (often called the "Many-Worlds Interpretation"); my book on the Everett interpretation, "The Emergent Multiverse", was published in June 2012. But I also have philosophical and conceptual interests in quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, quantum gravity, statistical mechanics, general relativity, symmetry and gauge theory, and basically pretty much all of contemporary philosophy of physics. Outside philosophy of physics, I'm interested in emergence and reductionism, in structural realism, and in decision theory.

I like cats and (extinct) dinosaurs, but don't currently own any of either.