Priyamvada Natarajan: "The kick you get from making predictions"

A leading astrophysicist on supermassive black holes and her drive to do science / Science

- / HARTOSH SINGH BAL

Priyamvada Natarajan, a theoretical astrophysicist and professor at Yale University, has spent decades exploring some of the universe’s most profound and persistent mysteries, particularly the unseen majority of dark matter and dark energy that silently influence the visible cosmos. Her research involves charting how dark matter clumps together and how dark energy causes space to expand. She also models supermassive black holes—colossal, dense objects millions of times the mass of our sun, found at the hearts of galaxies. Natarajan pioneered a leading theory on their initial formation in the early universe, which was confirmed by telescope observations—a momentous development in her field.

Hartosh Singh Bal, the executive editor of The Caravan, recently spoke with Natarajan about her journey into astrophysics, her decades-long endeavour to map the uncharted territories of the cosmos and the questions that propel her exploration.

I remember reading about your fascination for maps at a very early age. Where did this interest in astronomy begin?

My parents bought me both a telescope and a microscope when I was four or five years old, and it was quite clear which one grabbed me more. The telescope fascinated me because you could see out into the night sky, which was otherwise unreachable, whereas with a microscope you made slides of bugs and plants. The fact that there was something unreachable really got me interested from a young age—it was a kind of seduction.