Sjoert van Velzen
Background image: section of the Milky Way, observed at infrared wavelengths by WISE.
Hello
I'm an assistant professor at Leiden Observatory. I'm the coordinator of the Tidal Disruption Event subgroup of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.
Email: [first name] @strw.LeidenUniv.nl
Research Summary
I search the skies to find stars that happen to pass a bit too close to a supermassive black hole. Due to the strong gravity of the black hole, these unlucky stars get torn apart into streams of gas. The result is a sudden increase of fuel for the black hole, leading to a panchromatic flare of light. With my team of collaborators, we have recently collected a large sample of these rare and valuable events. I will use this sample to learn about the origin of black holes in the early Universe.