studying science changed me and it
allows me to make contributions into the
world and everyone regardless of their
identity should have that right we
cannot get to the best possible
expiration whether it’s on this planet
or beyond if we don’t have the totality
of people in the room to contribute to
the conversation I am going to be an
astrophysicist now wasn’t quite that
loud and probably not that confident
when I was sitting in the library as a
twelve year old girl and I figured out
what I wanted to be when I grew up I
wanted to be an astrophysicist and with
such an earth rending discovery the
first thing I had to do was run back to
base camp and tell everyone there so I
burped I ran home burst in the door said
mom I could be an astrophysicist when I
grow up I’m so excited is one of the
first times in life that I had
compellingly connected my identity and
my interests so I looked up at her and I
waited with bated breath to hear what
she’s gonna say and she said okay well
let’s do it then and we were off to the
races that was one of the most critical
moments in my life because she confirmed
right in that moment with her
unflinching unwavering support that who
I was and what I wanted to be were
perfectly compatible and that there were
well within the realm of possibility and
sure I’ve had role models since then
like dr. May Jemison and dr. Becky Brown
both black women astronaut and
astrophysicist but that first moment
with my mom I’m sure is what set me on
the course from that moment to this now
it wasn’t until much later that she told
me that I when I ran in and told her
what I wanted to be that she had zero
idea what it surfaces was or what they
did but she knew that if anyone could do
it I could and I’m so thankful for that
moment now it’s been roughly a couple
decades and I did ultimately become an
astrophysicist so I’m very excited to
report
so I’ll tell you a little bit today
about my research on Blazers
so Blazers what are they
supermassive hyperactive black holes
that sit at the center of galaxies I’m
showing you here real data from the
Hubble Space Telescope Ultra Deep Field
everything you see here is a galaxy
every single galaxy we now believe has a
supermassive black hole at its core
pretty much you know most of these black
holes are going about the business of
being black holes eating things doing
the normal black hole things but there
is a special class of them that’s doing
a little bit more these are called
quasars they are gargantuan championship
eaters in the black hole taxonomy there
are millions to billions of times of our
own Sun and are taking on a thousand
times more than the humdrum black holes
like the ones at the center of our
galaxy so they are bringing in tons and
tons of material while the black hole
itself is black you kiddin nothing is
escaping it what you see around it are
the SOS signals the death gas was a
material as it’s being pulled into that
black hole beyond that some of these
quasars have these Jets we’ll talk about
that in just a second I have these jets
that are ejecting material out of this
out of near the central source that are
going roughly the speed of light so
these are really the championship most
powerful sources in our universe I study
blazed ours which are blazing quasars so
you take this quasar that’s doing the
fad you see we’re building a story here
come along with me where do the blazing
quasars right so now you take this jet
that’s moving at 99.99% of the speed of
light and you point it at the earth got
really quiet you play at the earth you
should not be afraid though these are
cosmological distances so we are not in
any danger this is just a benefit of the
observational positioning so we care
about these because they’re pointed ass
so what you want to do is understand how
these Jets work so I’m going to show you
a video in just a second about how the
blazar system works how blackhole pulls
on material and then how we think it
creates a jet now this is
not real data this is magic it’s an
artist conception but I wanted you to
see so you have a picture in your mind
as we’re going through this story so
what you’re going to see is a black hole
with an accretion disk surrounding it
that’s how material falls onto the black
hole then the jet shoots out material
and then we’re gonna zoom out of that
and we’ll see that we’re sitting in the
middle of a galaxy and the thing I want
you to notice about that jet is that
it’s not continuous it sort of got
particles and material in it so the idea
of a thing we want to figure out is how
does this jet work how do we understand
nature’s particle accelerator how do you
get things moving that fast
they start off moving relatively slow
like water going down a dis train and
then they start to speed up these speeds
that’s the question so what we found in
our group is that on some level and in
some of these huge ejections of material
the technical term is actually blobs
which i think is the coolest thing ever
you can constrain the kind of fits you
can decide you can limit what kinds of
things can actually be possible so
that’s the actual like research that I
do but in doing it I realize that
research is not done in a vacuum and
that in fact it was sort of an oddity
that I was the one doing the work so I
started to think about that and wonder
how is it that we can make stem or
science technology engineering and
mathematics more inclusive studying
science changed me and it allows me to
make contributions into the world and
everyone regardless of their identity
should have that right so when I started
thinking about well how could I do this
and who would I start with and I decided
to start with those with intersectional
identities that is identities that
overlap so I chose to look into women of
color who want to pursue STEM degrees so
I started an online web series which you
can go and check out called Vanguard
conversations with women of color and
stem we meet about once a month and we
talk about all kinds of things it’s a
pretty informal place but the idea is to
confirm and affirm identity and interest
that there’s no preferred combination of
those two and that anyone could be
anything they want
so I host the show and it’s a group of
rotating panel so we have a bunch of
women of color
all kinds of different fields from
graduate all the way up to Dean’s of
colleges that tell us about their
experience they tell us about their
expertise and they give us advice about
how to do this process even better in
this way we’re trying to form and submit
community so that no one feels alone or
other because of who they are and what
they want to do we decided that there
was so much interest that we wanted to
do even more so not just meet once a
month and have this conversation but
really start to build community and it
would be important that that community
be virtual because we’re spread so many
places across the country and across the
globe so now we built a team and we are
planning to make Vanguard stem the go-to
premiere destination for stem identity
in women of color and stem so here’s an
example of some of our recent content
it’s created and curated by women of
color and stem so we get their vantage
point you’re welcome to join us come
visit support any way you want to engage
but this is a safe space for us to
investigate those things that come up in
our minds this idea that interest and
identity are related and can be in any
combination is an important concept but
I’m not saying this by way of asking to
join the club
I’m saying it because we cannot get to
the best possible exploration whether
it’s on this planet or beyond if we
don’t have the totality of people in the
room to contribute to the conversation
so if we want to get to our best
possible successes our best possible
discoveries then everyone has to be at
the table so let’s explore thank you
you
allows me to make contributions into the
world and everyone regardless of their
identity should have that right we
cannot get to the best possible
expiration whether it’s on this planet
or beyond if we don’t have the totality
of people in the room to contribute to
the conversation I am going to be an
astrophysicist now wasn’t quite that
loud and probably not that confident
when I was sitting in the library as a
twelve year old girl and I figured out
what I wanted to be when I grew up I
wanted to be an astrophysicist and with
such an earth rending discovery the
first thing I had to do was run back to
base camp and tell everyone there so I
burped I ran home burst in the door said
mom I could be an astrophysicist when I
grow up I’m so excited is one of the
first times in life that I had
compellingly connected my identity and
my interests so I looked up at her and I
waited with bated breath to hear what
she’s gonna say and she said okay well
let’s do it then and we were off to the
races that was one of the most critical
moments in my life because she confirmed
right in that moment with her
unflinching unwavering support that who
I was and what I wanted to be were
perfectly compatible and that there were
well within the realm of possibility and
sure I’ve had role models since then
like dr. May Jemison and dr. Becky Brown
both black women astronaut and
astrophysicist but that first moment
with my mom I’m sure is what set me on
the course from that moment to this now
it wasn’t until much later that she told
me that I when I ran in and told her
what I wanted to be that she had zero
idea what it surfaces was or what they
did but she knew that if anyone could do
it I could and I’m so thankful for that
moment now it’s been roughly a couple
decades and I did ultimately become an
astrophysicist so I’m very excited to
report
so I’ll tell you a little bit today
about my research on Blazers
so Blazers what are they
supermassive hyperactive black holes
that sit at the center of galaxies I’m
showing you here real data from the
Hubble Space Telescope Ultra Deep Field
everything you see here is a galaxy
every single galaxy we now believe has a
supermassive black hole at its core
pretty much you know most of these black
holes are going about the business of
being black holes eating things doing
the normal black hole things but there
is a special class of them that’s doing
a little bit more these are called
quasars they are gargantuan championship
eaters in the black hole taxonomy there
are millions to billions of times of our
own Sun and are taking on a thousand
times more than the humdrum black holes
like the ones at the center of our
galaxy so they are bringing in tons and
tons of material while the black hole
itself is black you kiddin nothing is
escaping it what you see around it are
the SOS signals the death gas was a
material as it’s being pulled into that
black hole beyond that some of these
quasars have these Jets we’ll talk about
that in just a second I have these jets
that are ejecting material out of this
out of near the central source that are
going roughly the speed of light so
these are really the championship most
powerful sources in our universe I study
blazed ours which are blazing quasars so
you take this quasar that’s doing the
fad you see we’re building a story here
come along with me where do the blazing
quasars right so now you take this jet
that’s moving at 99.99% of the speed of
light and you point it at the earth got
really quiet you play at the earth you
should not be afraid though these are
cosmological distances so we are not in
any danger this is just a benefit of the
observational positioning so we care
about these because they’re pointed ass
so what you want to do is understand how
these Jets work so I’m going to show you
a video in just a second about how the
blazar system works how blackhole pulls
on material and then how we think it
creates a jet now this is
not real data this is magic it’s an
artist conception but I wanted you to
see so you have a picture in your mind
as we’re going through this story so
what you’re going to see is a black hole
with an accretion disk surrounding it
that’s how material falls onto the black
hole then the jet shoots out material
and then we’re gonna zoom out of that
and we’ll see that we’re sitting in the
middle of a galaxy and the thing I want
you to notice about that jet is that
it’s not continuous it sort of got
particles and material in it so the idea
of a thing we want to figure out is how
does this jet work how do we understand
nature’s particle accelerator how do you
get things moving that fast
they start off moving relatively slow
like water going down a dis train and
then they start to speed up these speeds
that’s the question so what we found in
our group is that on some level and in
some of these huge ejections of material
the technical term is actually blobs
which i think is the coolest thing ever
you can constrain the kind of fits you
can decide you can limit what kinds of
things can actually be possible so
that’s the actual like research that I
do but in doing it I realize that
research is not done in a vacuum and
that in fact it was sort of an oddity
that I was the one doing the work so I
started to think about that and wonder
how is it that we can make stem or
science technology engineering and
mathematics more inclusive studying
science changed me and it allows me to
make contributions into the world and
everyone regardless of their identity
should have that right so when I started
thinking about well how could I do this
and who would I start with and I decided
to start with those with intersectional
identities that is identities that
overlap so I chose to look into women of
color who want to pursue STEM degrees so
I started an online web series which you
can go and check out called Vanguard
conversations with women of color and
stem we meet about once a month and we
talk about all kinds of things it’s a
pretty informal place but the idea is to
confirm and affirm identity and interest
that there’s no preferred combination of
those two and that anyone could be
anything they want
so I host the show and it’s a group of
rotating panel so we have a bunch of
women of color
all kinds of different fields from
graduate all the way up to Dean’s of
colleges that tell us about their
experience they tell us about their
expertise and they give us advice about
how to do this process even better in
this way we’re trying to form and submit
community so that no one feels alone or
other because of who they are and what
they want to do we decided that there
was so much interest that we wanted to
do even more so not just meet once a
month and have this conversation but
really start to build community and it
would be important that that community
be virtual because we’re spread so many
places across the country and across the
globe so now we built a team and we are
planning to make Vanguard stem the go-to
premiere destination for stem identity
in women of color and stem so here’s an
example of some of our recent content
it’s created and curated by women of
color and stem so we get their vantage
point you’re welcome to join us come
visit support any way you want to engage
but this is a safe space for us to
investigate those things that come up in
our minds this idea that interest and
identity are related and can be in any
combination is an important concept but
I’m not saying this by way of asking to
join the club
I’m saying it because we cannot get to
the best possible exploration whether
it’s on this planet or beyond if we
don’t have the totality of people in the
room to contribute to the conversation
so if we want to get to our best
possible successes our best possible
discoveries then everyone has to be at
the table so let’s explore thank you
you
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