Feryal Özel

Image of the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy M87, obtained by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. Prof. Özel is part of the EHT team as of 2020. Feryal Özel (born May 27, 1975) is a Turkish American astrophysicist born in Istanbul, Turkey, specializing in the physics of compact objects and high energy astrophysical phenomena. As of 2022, Özel is the department chair and a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Physics in Atlanta. She was previously a professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson, in the Astronomy Department and Steward Observatory.

Özel graduated summa cum laude from Columbia University's Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science and received her PhD at Harvard University with Ramesh Narayan acting as Thesis advisor. She was a Hubble Fellow and member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. She was a Fellow at the Harvard-Radcliffe Institute and a visiting professor at the Miller Institute at UC Berkeley.

Özel is widely recognized for her contributions to the field of neutron stars, black holes, and magnetars. She is the Modeling lead and member of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) that released the first image of a black hole.

Özel received the Maria Goeppert Mayer award from the American Physical Society in 2013 for her outstanding contributions to neutron star astrophysics. Özel has appeared on numerous TV documentaries including Big Ideas on PBS and the Universe series in the History Channel.

Along with Alexey Vikhlinin, Özel is the Science and Technology Definition Team Community Co-chair for the Lynx X-ray Observatory NASA Large Mission Concept Study.

Education The following list summarizes Prof. Özel's education path: 1992 - Üsküdar American Academy, İstanbul, Turkey 1996 - BSc in Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, New York City 1997 - MSc in Physics, Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen 2002 - PhD in Astrophysics, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA

Honors and awards Breakthrough Prize, 2020 Chair, Astrophysics Advisory Committee (APAC), NASA, 2019 Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 2016 Visiting Miller Professorship, University of California Berkeley, 2014 Maria Goeppert Mayer Award, American Physical Society, 2013 Bart J. Bok Prize, Harvard University, 2010 Lucas Award, San Diego Astronomy Association, 2010 Visiting Scholar Fellowship, Turkish Scientific and Technical Research Foundation, 2007 Hubble Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2002–2005 Distinguished Scholar Award, Daughters of Atatürk Foundation, 2003 Keck Fellowship, Institute for Advanced Study, 2002 Van Vleck Fellowship, Harvard University, 1999 Kostrup Prize, Niels Bohr Institute, 1997 Niels Bohr Institute Graduate Fellowship, 1996–1997 Applied Mathematics Faculty Award, Columbia University, 1996 Fu Foundation Scholarship, Columbia University, 1994–1996 Research Fellowship, CERN, 1995 Turkish Health and Education Foundation Scholarship, 1992-1994