The US National Science Foundation (NSF) has just awarded Kelly Holley-Bockelmann, an assistant professor of Physics and astronomy at the Vanderbilt University, an important grant for studying the evolution and development of black holes. The VU professor is the recipient of the largest Faculty Early Career Development grant that the foundation has ever awarded to a junior scientist. CAREER awards are the equivalent of Oscars in the movie business for young, promising scientists, who thus have a chance to continue their work and provide new viewpoints on long-standing issues.
“We don't have a real, detailed understanding of how supermassive black holes grow. The first stars in galaxies began forming about 300 million years after the Big Bang and the first quasars show up about 700 million years later. Quasars are the enormously bright nucleus of a galaxy, and we think they're powered by the vigorous accretion of gas onto a supermassive black hole. What this means is that supermassive black holes must have evolved in a surprisingly short period – the question is how did they grow so big so fast?” Holley-Bockelmann asks.
She also adds that the funds that she received were made available through the NSF, but that they originated with the Recovery Act of 2009 funds that were placed at the disposal of the scientific community. The foundation, as well as other policy groups that have the power to distribute federal funds in the United States, can now continue to support exceptionally promising college and university junior faculties, so that they can get on with their work.
“As a first generation college student, and a woman astronomer, it's important for me to help students realize that they can be a scientist no matter where they come from or what they look like, as long as they love science enough to put in the hard work,” the assistant professor says. She will use part of her grant to support the Fisk-Vanderbilt Master-to-PhD Bridge Program. This is a collaboration with the traditionally Black Fisk University, whose purpose is to promote underrepresented minorities and women in astronomy and physics careers. Holley-Bockelmann is also an adjunct professor at Fisk.
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