The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) has selected twelve new PhD students to be the national Faces of Science. One of them is Jordy Davelaar – an aspiring postgraduate within the BlackHoleCam project at the Radboud University Nijmegen. During the time of his PhD, Jordy will share what it is like to do research on black holes amongst other things on the FacesofScience.nl website.
Being nominated was already a great recognition for the PhD student, but being selected is like a dream come true. “I feel honored that I am selected by KNAW to be a part of this project and I am looking forward to share the wonders of black holes with the general public and help students in making a decision towards their career path.”, says Jordy humbled. With his theoretical research, Jordy wants to understand how radiation is produced around black holes and he visualizes these models in virtual reality, an example can be watched on YouTube. Especially the latter is a great tool for Jordy to reach people outside of science and bring them closer to the topic.
Marijke Haverkorn and Heino Falcke nominated Jordy for Faces of Science. Marijke’s motivation was: “Jordy is an ideal candidate for Faces of Science. He is an excellent researcher working on black holes, a subject that quickly catches the interest of many people. He is active in various forms of science communication, such as giving lectures, organizing star gazing events, and enthusiastically disseminates astronomy on social media.”
Already at a very early stage, Jordy had the ambition to work in Astrophysics, so it was very natural for him to do his Bachelor and Master studies in Astrophysics. Jordy successfully graduated in 2016 with his Master and is now doing his PhD studies under the supervision of Monika Mościbrodzka in the group of professor Heino Falcke. Together with Monika, Jordy is researching the environments of black holes to get a better understanding of their observational appearance. Monika is very pleased about the cooperation with Jordy: “It is a true pleasure to be the supervisor of Jordy Davelaar. He was a brilliant student right from the beginning. In his first year, Jordy already published two scientific publications. He is also a very active science popularizer and great mentor for junior students. One could set him as an example of a perfect PhD student that everyone would like to work with”.
Congratulations to Jordy on behalf of the BlackHoleCam collaboration!
The press release of KNAW is published here. (Dutch only)
In case of any questions, please reach out to Jordy Davelaar via email or twitter.
