Stony Brook University to Host First NASA Hubble Fellow

Stony Brook University has been chosen to host its first NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Hubble Fellow: Konstantinos Kritos, a PhD student from Johns Hopkins University.

The fellowship will support Kritos' research program, "Unveiling the mystery of massive black hole seeds through gravitational and electromagnetic waves." Rosalba Perna, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences, will serve as Kritos' faculty contact.

Kritos is a theoretical and computational astrophysicist whose research focuses on the formation and evolution of black holes and their observable signatures through gravitational waves. In particular, his work centers on modeling dense star clusters using semi-analytic and population synthesis methods to study how binary black holes form, merge and produce detectable signals. He also applies statistical and machine learning techniques to infer the properties of star clusters from gravitational-wave observations and develops models for the growth of massive and supermassive black holes.

Overall, his research aims to connect astrophysical theory with gravitational-wave data to better understand black hole populations and cosmic structure formation.

Kritos' fellowship will begin on September 1, 2026 and the appointment will run for three years. NASA's Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) will fund this research by awarding a grant to Stony Brook University.

"I am delighted that Kostantinos Kritos has chosen Stony Brook University as the place to conduct their research supported by the NASA Hubble fellowship, and I am looking forward to several years of exciting collaborative research on a variety of timely topics in theoretical astrophysics," Perna said.

The STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy and helps humanity explore the universe with advanced space telescopes and ever-growing data archives. Established in 1981, the STScI helps guide the most famous observatory in history, the Hubble Space Telescope. Since its launch in 1990, this agency has performed the science operations for Hubble and also leads the science and mission operations for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which launched on December 25, 2021.

The Institute performs parts of the science operations for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, in formulation for launch in late 2026, and is partnering on several other NASA missions. The STScI staff conducts world-class scientific research; including the Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) which curates and disseminates data from over 20 astronomical missions; and they bring science to the world through internationally recognized news, education, and public outreach programs.