Prof. Erin A Kara

Professor Kara is an observational astrophysicist, working to understand the physics behind how black holes grow and affect their environments. She has advanced a new technique called X-ray reverberation mapping, which allows astronomers to map the gas falling on to black holes and measure the effects of strongly curved spacetime close to the event horizon. She also works on variety of transient phenomena, such as tidal disruption events and Galactic black hole outbursts. She is a NASA Participating Scientist for XRISM Observatory, a joint JAXA / NASA X-ray spectroscopy mission, and co-chairs the supermassive black hole working group.