How Katie Bouman Accidentally

Became the Face of the Black Hole

Project
By Sarah Mervosh
 April 11, 2019


As the first-ever picture of a black hole was unveiled this week, another image began
making its way around the internet: a photo of a young scientist, clasping her hands
over her face and reacting with glee to an image of an orange ring of light, circling a
deep, dark abyss.

It was a photo too good not to share. The scientist, Katie Bouman, a postdoctoral fellow
who contributed to the project, became an instant hero for women and girls in STEM, a
welcome symbol in a world hungry for representation.

Public figures from Washington to Hollywood learned her name. And some advocates,
familiar with how history can write over the contributions of women, quickly moved to
make sure she received the recognition she deserved. In their eagerness to celebrate her,
however, many nonscientists on social media overstated her role in what was a group
effort by hundreds of people, creating an exaggerated impression as the photo was
shared and reshared.
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As Dr. Bouman herself was quick to point out, she was by no means solely responsible
for the discovery, which was a result of a worldwide collaboration among scientists who
worked together to create the image from a network of radio antennas.

The project, led by Shep Doeleman, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center

for Astrophysics, was the work of more than 200 researchers. About 40 of them were
women, according to Harvard’s Black Hole Initiative.

“There are women involved in every single step of this amazing project,” said Sara
Issaoun, 24, a graduate student at Radboud University in the Netherlands who worked
on the research. “As a woman in STEM myself, it’s good to have role models out there
who young girls and young boys can look up to.”

But Ms. Issaoun warned against a “lone-wolf success” narrative. “The diversity and
group effort and the breadth of our collaboration, I think, is worth celebration,” she said.

To capture the image of a black hole — a mysterious phenomenon long thought to be

unseeable — the scientists used eight radio observatories across the globe to observe the
galaxy on and off for 10 days in April 2017. Then they embarked on the painstaking
effort to process enormous amounts of data and map it into an image.

Dr. Bouman, who will soon become an assistant professor at the California Institute of
Technology, indeed played a significant role in the imaging process, which involved
researchers breaking up into teams to map the data and compare and test the images
they created.

While she led the development of an algorithm to take a picture of a black hole, an effort
that was the subject of a TED Talk she gave in 2016, her colleagues said that technique
was not ultimately used to create this particular image.

After the burst of publicity spread her smiling face across Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and
news sites around the globe, Dr. Bouman did not initially respond to requests for
comment Thursday. In a Facebook post, she said: “No one algorithm or person made
this image. It required the amazing talent of a team of scientists from around the globe.”

“It has been truly an honor,” she added, “and I am so lucky to have had the opportunity
to work with you all.”

In a text message late Thursday night, Dr. Bouman said that she had to turn her phone
off because she was getting so many messages. “I’m so glad that everyone is as excited as
we are and people are finding our story inspirational,’’ she wrote. “However, the
spotlight should be on the team and no individual person. Focusing on one person like
this helps no one, including me.”

Other women on the project also celebrated this week as years of hard work were finally
made public.
“Honestly, it was a dream come true,” Sandra Bustamante, a telescope instrumentalist
who worked on the project, said in an interview this week.
Feryal Ozel, an astronomy and astrophysics professor at the University of Arizona who
was on the science council for the project, first published a paper on black hole imaging
in 2000. She called the unveiling “a sweet moment that’s been a long time in the
making.”

In an interview on Thursday, Dr. Ozel said that it was exciting to see people interested in
the role of women in science, but she highlighted the contributions of other women and
men. That included one of her male graduate students, who took multiple trips to the
South Pole, where one of the telescopes was located.

“I think giving credit to any single individual — whether this is a woman or man, young
or old — harms the collaboration,” she said.

Penn Sheppard, who works with Girls Inc., an organization that empowers young
women and offers after-school programming to support girls learning in science,
technology, engineering and math, said that Dr. Bouman’s story resonated in an
industry in which women are underrepresented — and in a world in which their
scientific contributions have historically gone unacknowledged.

“It was an opportunity to see an accomplished woman play a significant role, and being
acknowledged in that role,” she said. “That’s significant because girls and young boys are
starting to see that women are scientists — not just you can be, but you are.”

Ms. Issaoun said she also wanted to celebrate the success of a diverse collaboration of
scientists, but she said she understood why the photo of Dr. Bouman went viral.

“We love this photo too, because she looks so happy,” said Ms. Issaoun, who said she got
shivers when she saw the image of a black hole. “I think her expression really captures
how we all felt when we first saw it.”