Black Holes, Blazars, and Women of Color in Science | Nat Geo Live

JEDIDAH ISLER: 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 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. (audience applauding) (audience laughing)

I am going to be an astrophysicist. Now, it wasn't quite that loud and probably not that confident when I was sitting in a library as a 12 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 ran home, burst in the door. I said, "Mom, I'm going to be an astrophysicist when I grow up!" (audience chuckling) I was so excited.

It was 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 was gonna say, and she said... "Huh, okay. (audience laughing) "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 they were well within the realm of possibility.

And sure, I've had role models since then, like Doctor Mae Jemison and Doctor Beth 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 when I ran in and told her what I wanted to be that she had zero idea what an astrophysicist 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 that. So, I'll tell you a little bit today about my research on blazars. So, blazars, 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. They're millions to billions the 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. And, while the black hole itself is black, nothing is escaping it, what you see around it are the SOS signals, the death gasps of 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, have these jets that are ejecting material 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 blazars, which are blazing quasars. So, you take this quasar that's doing the th... You see? We're building a story here, come along with me. (laughs) (audience laughing) We 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. It got really quiet. (audience laughing)

You point it 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 are pointed at us. So, what you want to do is understand how these jets work. So, I'm gonna show you a video, in just a second, about how the blazar system works, how a black hole 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 gonna 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 that I want you to notice about that jet is that it's not continuous. It's sort of got particles and material in it.

So, the idea, the 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 dish drain, and then they start to speed up to these speeds. That's the question. So, what we've 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 physics.

You can decide... You can limit what kinds of physics can actually be possible. So, that's the actual, like, research that I do. But, in doing it, I realized 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 then, 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 in 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, so 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 panels. So, we have a bunch of women of color in all kinds of different fields, from graduate all the way up to Deans 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 cement community so that no one feels alone or othered 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, premier destination for STEM identity in women of color in STEM.

So, here is an example of some of our recent content. It's created and curated by women of color in STEM, so we get their vantage point. You are welcome to come 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. (audience applauding)