2025 McDonnell Distinguished Lectures: Colloquium with Priyamvada Natarajan on the Formation of the First Black Holes

There is a revolution afoot in our understanding of supermassive black holes (SMBHs), that is reshaping our view of their formation, growth and influence on cosmic architecture. Recent breakthroughs have enriched our knowledge of their origins, mass assembly histories and coupling to the larger scale galactic environments. These include: (i) unveiling black hole seed formation via direct collapse illuminated by the synergistic capabilities of NASA's JWST, Chandra, and Hubble telescopes; (ii) groundbreaking evidence for the collective gravitational wave signals from merging SMBHs, captured by the global network of pulsar timing arrays, including NANOGrav; and (iii) the advent of cutting-edge computational methods enabling us to integrate the dynamics of SMBH accretion with their extended cosmic environments. In this talk, Natarajan will focus on new insights into the formation of the first black holes from when the Universe was ~ 400-500 Myrs old and what we are learning from these new data-sets; discuss open pertinent questions in black hole physics and outline the exciting prospects for the future including the upcoming LISA mission.

Priyamvada Natarajan is an astrophysicist, and the inaugural Joseph S. and Sophia S. Fruton Professor in Astronomy & Physics at Yale. She has made seminal contributions to our understanding of the nature of dark matter using gravitational lensing studies; and the assembly history of supermassive black holes over cosmic time. The recipient of many awards and honors, including fellowships of the American Physical Society; American Astronomical Society; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellowships, she was recognized with the 2022 Liberty Science Center ‘Genius Award’ and 2025 Dannie Heineman Prize in Astrophysics that is jointly awarded by the American Astronomical Society and American Institute of Physics. She was included in the TIME100 list of most influential people in the world in 2024 for her path breaking contributions to Astrophysics. Priya has served as Chair of the National Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee that advises NASA, NSF and DoE; as Chair of the Division of Astrophysics of the APS and currently serves on the Scientific Editorial Board of the AAS Journals. On the faculty at Yale, since 2000, she serves currently as the Director of the Franke Program in Science and the Humanities and was the Chair of the Women Faculty Forum from 2011-2014.

Header image: This artist concept illustrates a supermassive black hole with millions to billions times the mass of our Sun. Supermassive black holes are enormously dense objects buried at the hearts of galaxies. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech