Sheperd S. Doeleman
Sheperd S. Doeleman | |
|---|---|
| Born | Sheperd Nacheman 1967 Wilsele, Belgium |
| Awards | Henry Draper Medal (2021) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astrophysics |
| Institutions | Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics |
| Thesis | Imaging Active Galactic Nuclei with 3mm-VLBI (1995) |
| Doctoral advisors | Alan E.E. Rogers and Bernard F. Burke |
Sheperd "Shep" S. Doeleman (born 1967) is an American astrophysicist. His research focuses on super massive black holes with sufficient resolution to directly observe the event horizon. He is a senior research fellow at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Founding Director[1] of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project.[2] He led the international team of researchers that produced the first directly observed image of a black hole.[3][4]
Doeleman was named one of Time magazines 100 Most Influential People of 2019.[5]
Background[]
He was born in Wilsele in Belgium to American parents. The family returned to the United States a few months later, and he grew up in Portland, Oregon. He was later adopted by his stepfather Nelson Doeleman.[6]
Career and research[]
He earned a B.A. at Reed College in 1986 and then spent a year in Antarctica working on multiple space-science experiments at McMurdo Station. He then went on to earn a PhD in astrophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1995; his dissertation was titled Imaging Active Galactic Nuclei with 3mm-VLBI. He has worked at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn and returned to MIT in 1995, where he later became assistant director of the Haystack Observatory.[7][8]
His research has focused in particular on problems that require ultra-high resolving power. He is known for heading the group of over 200 researchers at research institutions in several countries that produced the first aperture synthesis image of a black hole.[4]
Significant papers[]
- Doeleman S.S., et al. (2008). Event-horizon-scale structure in the supermassive black hole candidate at the Galactic Centre. Nature 455: 78–80.
- Doeleman S.S., et al. (2012). Jet-Launching Structure Resolved Near the Supermassive Black Hole in M87. Science 338: 355–358.
- Doeleman S.S., et al. (2009). Detecting Flaring Structures in Sagittarius A* with High-Frequency VLBI. Astrophys.J 695: 59-74.
Awards[]
- Guggenheim Fellow, 2012[7]
- 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (one share; prize shared equally among 347 scientist of the EHT
- 2020 Bruno Rossi Prize, to Doeleman and the EHT
- 2021 Henry Draper Medal, shared with Heino Falcke
References[]
- ^ "organization". eventhorizontelescope.org.
- ^ "Sheperd Doeleman". bhi.fas.harvard.edu.
- ^ "Harvard scientists shed light on importance of black hole image". 10 April 2019.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Ghosh, Pallab (10 April 2019). "First ever black hole image released". BBC.
- ^ "Shep Doeleman: The 100 Most Influential People of 2019". TIME. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
- ^ Seth Fletcher: Einstein's Shadow: A Black Hole, a Band of Astronomers, and the Quest to See the Unseeable (part 1, chapter 3). HarperCollins, 2018, ISBN 978-0-06-231202-0
- ^ Jump up to: a b "Sheperd S. Doeleman". John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.
- ^ "Sheperd S. Doeleman".
- Living people
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni
- American astrophysicists
- Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics people
- Scientists from Portland, Oregon
- 1967 births
- 20th-century American astronomers
- 20th-century American physicists
- 21st-century American astronomers
- 21st-century American physicists