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
Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian and the Founding Director of the
Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project. He led the international team of researchers that produced the first directly observed image of a
black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravitation, gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other Electromagnetic radiation, electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. The theory of general relativity predicts t ...
.
Doeleman was named one of ''
Time'' magazine's ''100 Most Influential People of 2019''.
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.
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
McMurdo Station is a United States Antarctic research station on the south tip of Ross Island, which is in the New Zealand-claimed Ross Dependency on the shore of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. It is operated by the United States through the Unit ...
. 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.
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.
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
*2020
Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (one share; prize shared equally among 347 scientist of the EHT)
*2020
Lancelot M. Berkeley - New York Community Trust Prize for Meritorious Work in Astronomy,
*2020
Bruno Rossi Prize, to Doeleman and the EHT
*2021
Henry Draper Medal, shared with
Heino Falcke
*2023
Prix Georges Lemaître The Prix Georges Lemaître is an award created in 1995, in celebration of the centenary of the birth in 1894 of Georges Lemaître. The ''Association des Anciens et Amis de l'Université catholique de Louvain'' (Association of the Alumni and Friends ...
References
External links
Oral history interview transcript with Sheperd Doeleman on 21 May 2021, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives
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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