Iconic HST Heritage Image of M64, showing a spiral galaxy with a dark dust lane that some say resembles a black eye.

Group Research Update

It has been too long since I have put up research updates. I really need to get back to my promise of having a page for each major research product. In the meantime, here is a mini update on two black hole mass measurements. NGC 3258 Korbin Waters used MUSE A/O data to measure the […]

Illustration of pulsar with text reading "NANOGrav Physics Frontiers Center" at the top and "2024 Fall Meeting Ann Arbor, Michigan" at the bottom

NANOGrav 2024 Fall Meeting

This week has been NANOGrav week at U-M! We are hosted the NANOGrav 2024 Fall Collaboration Meeting at Palmer Commons. This week’s Astronomy Colloquium will be given by Joe Simon (U. Colorado) talking about the astrophysics of gravitational wave background. Monday’s High Energy / Astrophysics Seminar in the Physics Department was given by Jeff Hazboun (Oregon St. U.) talking about pulsar timing […]

Office nameplate that says "Kayhan Gultekin, Associate Professor"

Promoted with Tenure!

I am thrilled to share that I have been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure at the University of Michigan! Thank you to my colleagues, mentors, students, and everyone who has supported me on this journey. I look forward to continuing my research and teaching in this new role.

A group of around 40 people standing at the front of a lecture hall.

COMO 2024

Three of us (Cayenne Matt, CJ Harris, and I) attended Compact Objects in Michigan and Ontario 2024. This year it was hosted by Henry Ford College. Cayenne and CJ gave talks on their most recent research.

screenshot of zoom presentation of dissertation defense. Left-hand panel shows powerpoint slide with amazing M-sigma plot. Right-hand panel shows room where defense is happening.

An alumna graduates!

A huge congratulations to former undergraduate group member Dr. Erica Hammerstein, who successfully defended her dissertation, titled “Population Studies of Tidal Disruption Events and Their Hosts: Understanding Host Galaxy Preferences and the Origin of the Ultraviolet and Optical Emission”. The NANOGrav results keep on coming out! The following papers were officially published in the past […]

Artist’s interpretation of an array of pulsars being affected by gravitational ripples produced by a supermassive black hole binary in a distant galaxy. Credit: Aurore Simonnet for the NANOGrav Collaboration

So much has happened!

It has been over a year since posting a news item, but it has been a busy year. I will do bullet points of the most important stuff that has happened. The evidence for gravitational wave background is huge news. It was a huge effort to get there from a team I have loved being […]

Group picture of 16 scientists in person with 3 virtually projected behind them.

NLST Meeting in Bothell, WA

I was in Bothell, WA right before AAS for a NASA LISA Study Team meeting. We put in some time thinking about the Science Ground Segment and the best ways for NASA to enable astrophysicists to extract science from LISA data. It’s really exciting to think about all the amazing stuff that will come from […]