UvA Press Release
EHT wins prestigious Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics!
The annual Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, for a total amount of $3 million, goes to the 347 scientists that co-authored the six papers published by the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration in April 2019. The papers announced the first image of a supermassive black hole, taken by means of an Earth-sized alliance of telescopes. Among the laureates are UvA scientists Sera Markoff, Oliver Porth and Koushik Chatterjee. UvA postdoc Doosoo Yoon also contributed to the EHT results.
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University of Amsterdam
Honorary awards for astronomers Selma de Mink and Sera Markoff
Prof. Dr Sera Markoff receives the Willem de Graaff Prize for her inspired, enthusiastic and versatile public outreach activities. Markoff is a professor of theoretical high-energy astrophysics at the University of Amsterdam. She regularly goes to schools in disadvantaged areas with a team of young researchers to introduce young children to science in general and astronomy in particular. Last week she organized another stargazing evening combined with an iftar celebration during Ramadan. Markoff is also a scientific heavyweight; for example, she was recently involved in taking the very first photograph of a black hole.
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Physics Today
Commentary: The problematic media portrayals of women in science
All the hype around Bouman—including the misrepresentations of her and her contributions—stemmed from her photos going viral and then being picked up by media. Although people sharing things on social media may not be attuned to such nuances, those who cover scientific discoveries should take care to include women without focusing on their appearance. And it can be done: Take, for example, the New York Times and Wired. When covering the discovery, they interviewed two other women from the black hole team, Sera Markoff from the University of Amsterdam and Feryal Özel from the University of Arizona, respectively. The women served as scientific experts who explained the work and its implications, and neither woman’s appearance ever came up.
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Space Cowboys podcast
Space Cowboys (BNR Radio) podcast
Sera Markoff sits on the Science Council of the Event Horizon Telescope, which made world news recently by taking a picture of a black hole. She is also professor of Theoretical High Energy Astrophysics at the Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy and GRAPPA at the University of Amsterdam. She features on this week's version of Space Cowboys, a weekly podcast on space, rocket science, the hunt for life, telecommunications and maybe even some espionage. Space Cowboys is brought to you in English by Thys Roes (https://yeah-science.net/) and Herbert Blankesteijn (https://blankesteijn.com/) in collaboration with BNR in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
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Folia
Profile (in Dutch) in UvA Folia magazine
Sera Markoff, UvA-hoogleraar theoretische hoge-energie astrofysica, wist al sinds vorige zomer dat er een foto was gemaakt van een zwart gat. Ze sprak erover tijdens de persconferentie in Washington. ‘Ik was bang dat ik voor de ogen van miljoenen mensen een fout zou maken, zou struikelen of mijn verhaal zou vergeten.’
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NRC.NL
Zwart gat gooit heet gas alle kanten op
Markoff: „Als de beide rotatie-assen niet samenvallen, ontstaat er een krachtmeting tussen het zwarte gat en de (magnetische) krachten die de schijf bijeenhouden. Als gevolg hiervan trekt het binnenste deel van de schijf krom en vertoont het een schommelbeweging. En de jets schommelen mee.”
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New York Times
Darkness Visible, Finally: Astronomers Capture First Ever Image of a Black Hole
The images released today bolster the notion of violence perpetrated over cosmic scales, said Sera Markoff, an astrophysicist at the University of Amsterdam, and a member of the Event Horizon team. “Black holes must be the most exotic major disrupters of cosmic order,” she said.
