Highlight Speakers
The highlight speakers for BlackHolistic 2026 are:
Kate Alexander (Steward Observatory)
will speak on topics relating to The connection between accretion and jet formation in tidal disruption events
Kate D. Alexander is an Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona. Her research spans many facets of time-domain astrophysics, from tidal disruption events (TDEs) to gamma-ray bursts. She uses radio observations in combination with multi-wavelength data to study relativistic jets and other types of mass ejection in these systems. She is particularly interested in using TDEs as probes of supermassive black hole accretion by comparing her observations to analytical and numerical models. Her recent work has revealed a diverse landscape of outflows from TDEs, which we are still working to understand fully.
Shane Davis (University of Virginia)
will speak on topics relating to Simulations of relativistic accretion
I am a professor at the University of Virginia and my general interests are computational and theoretical astrophysics. My primary expertise is in the numerical simulation of astrophysical fluids, especially in systems where radiation plays a dominant role in the dynamics and thermodynamics. My favorite applications are the simulation and modeling of black hole accretion flows in X-ray binaries, ultraluminous X-ray sources, active galactic nuclei, binary supermassive black holes, and tidal disruption events. I use simulation results to create first principles models of these systems, connecting with observations to test these models. My ultimate goal is understanding the nature of black hole accretion flows and constraining the spacetimes that they inhabit.
Natalie Webb (OMP)
will speak on topics relating to Super-Eddington Accretion
Natalie Webb is an Astronomer (equivalent of full professor) at the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie/ University of Toulouse, France. Her research is centred on understanding the formation and growth of supermassive black holes, investigating the importance of intermediate mass black holes, black hole mergers and super-Eddington accretion, primarily through multi-wavelength observations of massive black hole binaries (MBHBs), tidal disruption events (TDEs) and ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs). Using large catalogues of multi-wavelength data she has led her team to find many new examples of MBHBs, TDEs, ULXs and other rare sources. She is also responsible for the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre (science ground segment of the ESA X-ray observatory XMM-Newton) and the NewAthena/X-ISC, the equivalent for the X-IFU instrument, and is President of both the ESA Astronomy Archives Users Group and the CNES (French Space Agency) Astronomy & Astrophysics advisory group.
Alex Tsompanidis (Cambridge)
will speak on topics relating to Neurodiversity in science
Alex is an Assistant Research Professor at the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on developmental neuroscience and the perinatal causes of autism. He has been named in the world’s ‘top 40 under 40’ autism researchers worldwide and his PhD was given the ‘best dissertation award’ by the International Association of Autism Research. He is particularly interested in sex differences, the placenta-brain axis and evolutionary analyses of human cognition
Phil Hopkins (Caltech)
will speak on topics relating to Sub-grid physics in cosmological numerical modelling
Phil Hopkins is a theoretical astrophysicist using numerical simulations to study the growth and evolution of supermassive black holes in galaxy centers, where these black holes come from, and how they influence their host galaxies, on scales from the event horizon out to the circum-and-inter-galactic medium.
Sara Motta (INAF Merate)
will speak on topics relating to The connection between accretion and jet formation in stellar mass black holes (X-ray binary systems)
Sara Elisa Motta is a Staff Researcher (Prima Ricercatrice) at the INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera. Her work explores accretion and feedback in compact objects around stellar mass black holes and neutron stars, but also in other classes of accreting systems, and combining X-ray and radio observations with timing analysis and relativistic modelling. She has held fellowship positions at the European Space Agency and the University of Oxford, and currently leads or co-leads a number of international projects. Active in major initiatives including the SKA, she also chaired and served on telescope time-allocation committees and regularly contributes to the organisation of international conferences.
Laura Olivera-Nieto (Amsterdam)
will speak on topics relating to Very High Energy gamma ray emission from black holes in our galaxy
I am an Otto-Hahn fellow at the University of Amsterdam. My research focuses on high‐energy astrophysics, particularly on observations of gamma-ray emission from the jets of x-ray binaries. One of the reasons that detecting gamma-ray emission from these systems is interesting is that it reveals that their jets can be extremely powerful particle accelerators, likely contributing to some fraction of the cosmic rays detected from Earth. It also enables studies about the physical processes and outflows in x-ray binaries, which are largely poorly understood. My PhD work focused on the binary system SS 433, using data from gamma‑ray observatories like H.E.S.S. and HAWC. Since then, I have been working on expanding the sample of sources from which gamma-ray emission is detected through further observations while at the same time trying to understand the known objects using modeling and collaborations with experts in other wavelengths.
Claudio Ricci (Geneva)
will speak on topics relating to The connection between accretion and jet formation in Changing Look (and normal!) AGN
Claudio Ricci is an Associate Professor at the University of Geneva (Switzerland) and a long-term visiting faculty at the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Beijing (China). Claudio’s research focuses on the accretion and obscuration of supermassive black holes, and how these processes shape the observed properties of active galactic nuclei. He uses X-ray spectroscopy and multiwavelength observations to study the structure and evolution of both the circumnuclear medium and the accretion flow. A central part of his recent work investigates changing-state AGN, where rapid transitions in spectral state provide key information on accretion physics. He is a co-founder and co-leader of the Swift/BAT AGN Survey (BASS), which is creating a benchmark sample of black hole accretion in the nearby Universe. Claudio is also involved in new photometric and spectroscopic surveys designed to trace black hole growth (LSST, 4MOST), with particular interest in rapid accretion events and the physics of super-Eddington accretion.
Debora Sijacki (Cambridge)
will speak on topics relating to Incorporating black hole accretion and jet formation into cosmological simulations
I am interested in the formation and evolution of cosmic structures from small mass galaxies at high redshifts to the most massive galaxy clusters of the present-day Universe. Structure formation is one of the most fascinating fields of astrophysics. Due to the non-linearity and large variety of physical phenomena occurring on a vast range of scales, it is very challenging to model theoretically, and the full complexity of these processes still needs to be unraveled. My primary research focus is on developing novel numerical models which can follow self-consistently the formation and growth of cosmic structures, including all of the three major constituents: dark energy, dark matter and baryons. In particular, I focus on hydrodynamical modelling of important astrophysical phenomena, such as active galactic nuclei, to understand how they influence the formation, growth and morphologies of the galaxies we observe today.
