Curriculum Vitae

Sera Markoff

Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy & GRAPPA  (Gravitation & Astroparticle Physics Amsterdam)
University of Amsterdam
Science Park 904
1098 XH Amsterdam, Netherlands
T +31 20 525 7478/7491
F +31 20 525 7484
s.b.markoff@uva.nl

This is a basic summary. Here is a somewhat recent PDF of my CV.

Here is a direct link to my refereed publications (ADS). As of May 2023 (from ADS):  244 refereed publications, ~23k citations, 51 >100 citations, h=74.

PERSONAL DATA

Date and place of birth — 6 July 1971, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Citizenship — USA

Languages — English (native), German (was fluent until I started learning Dutch), Dutch (pretty darn fluent)

CURRENT POSITION

2017 – Present — Professor of Theoretical High Energy Astrophysics

2016 – Present — Member Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (was member of Science Council 2016-2022, Vice-Chair 2019-2022)

EDUCATION

2000 — PhD, Theoretical Astrophysics Program, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA , thesis title “High Energy Processes in the Galactic Center”

1996 — M.A., Physics/Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, US

1993 — S.B., Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

2017 – present — Professor, UvA, supervised to date: 14 PhD students, 12 Postdocs, 20 MSc and 11 BSc students

2008- 2017 — Universitair Hoofddocent (Assoc. Prof.), UvA

2006-2008 — Universitair Docent (Assist. Prof.), UvA

2002-2005 — National Science Foundation Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

2000-2002 — A.v. Humboldt Foundation Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Bonn, Germany

1994-2000 — Graduate student researcher at University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, US

1993-1994 — Visiting graduate student researcher at the Racah Institute for Physics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

1990-1993 — Undergraduate researcher at the MIT Center for Space Research, thesis: “The Unusual ROSAT Quasar PG1407+265”

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Accretion and outflows around black holes of all mass scales, and the relationship between them, as well as their impact on their surroundings. High energy astrophysics, astroparticle physics, jetted transients, multi-messenger astrophysics from low-frequency radio through gamma-rays, as well as cosmic rays and neutrinos. Instrumentation: The global mm-VLBI project The Event Horizon Telescope, and the next generation GeV/TeV gamma-ray facility Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), as well as software development to simultaneously analyse multi-messenger signals.

AWARDS & HONORS (SINCE 2000)

2022 — ERC Synergy Grant “BlackHolistic” co-PI

2022 — Biard Endowed Public Lecture, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA

2022 — Distinguished visitor, Black Hole Initiative, Harvard University (May-June)

2021 — Named member of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW)

2021 — UK Royal Astronomical Society Group Achievement Award (Awarded to the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration; EHTC)

2020 — Dutch Research Council (NWO) Domain Science Diversity Prize (for ongoing projects with elementary school children from under-represented backgrounds, and their families), €50k

2020 — Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics ($3M); Bruno Rossi Prize of the American Astronomical Society; Einstein Medal of the Albert Einstein Society (Awarded to the EHTC for the first image of a supermassive black hole)

2019 — Berkeley Prize of the American Astronomical Society; Diamond Achievement of the US National Science Foundation; Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award (Natural Sciences) (Awarded to the EHTC)

2019 — Willem de Graaff Prize for Public Outreach (Royal Dutch Astronomical Society)

2019 — Grassroots Diversity Award (University of Amsterdam Science Faculty)

2018 — Westerdijk Professorship Prize (NWO)

2015 — VICI personal career award (NWO): From micro- to mega-scales: understanding how black holes shape the local Universe (5 years)

2015 — Tinsley Centennial Visiting Professorship, UT Austin, 2/20/15-5/2/15

2014 — Named Fellow of the American Physical Society (top 0.5% of membership)

2013 — Visiting Professorship, University Paris Diderot (VII), 3/1/13—5/31/13

2007 — VIDI personal career award (NWO),  Understanding the Physics of Black Hole Jets and Accretion States from Stellar to Galactic Scales (5 years)

2002 — National Science Foundation Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

2000 — Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellowship

SELECTED RESEARCH GRANTS

2023 — NWO Research Infrastructure Consortium “The Africa Millimetre Telescope (AMT) – making colour movies of black holes”, €3.5M (PI: H. Falcke, coPI S. Markoff)

2022 — ERC Synergy Grant “BlackHolistic”, €13.8M (3PIs:  H. Falcke, R. Fender, S. Markoff)

2020 — NWO Large Project: A major Dutch contribution to CTA by building cameras for this next generation gamma-ray observatory, €2M (PI: J. Vink, Project Scientist: Markoff, Co-PIs:  A. Baryshev, M. Vecchi, C. Weniger)

2020 — NWO/NWA ORC,  Dutch Black Hole Consortium, €4.9M (PI: P. Jonker,  Markoff: CoPI and member of the Consortium Board)

2015 — NWO VICI innovation grant + Aspasia subsidy,  €1.6M

2014— NWO Astroparticle Physics Program, Determining the contribution of X-ray Binaries to the Galactic cosmic ray population, and their TeV emission properties, (Co-PIs: S. Markoff & B. Achterberg), €215k

2014— NWO Astroparticle Physics Program, CTA-NL: Establishing the Netherlands as full member country of the Cherenkov Telescope Array, (PI: D. Berge, CoIs: Markoff,  Vink, Venema, Stuik, Hörandel, van den Berg), €645k

2013— NOVA-4 Instrumentation, Camera & Detector Development for CTA, (PI: J. Vink, CoIs: Berge, Markoff, Hörandel, Stuik, Venema, van den Berg), €1.5M

2013— NWO Open Competition, First steps towards calibrating black hole jet feedback: a decisive link between inflow and outflow, €180k

2012 — NWO Graduate Programme proposal for GRAPPA (Co-PI with J. Vink, P. Decowski, J. de Boer), €800k

2011 — NASA Chandra X-ray Visionary Program: 3Msec on Galactic supermassive black hole Sgr A* (Co-PI with F. Baganoff & M. Nowak), $390k

2008 — Co-coordinator, with Jörn Wilms (Uni Erlangen), of the EU FP7 Marie Curie Initial Training Network “Black Hole Universe” linking UvA, Erlangen/Nürnberg (D), Southampton (UK), CEA Saclay (F), INAF Brera (IT), U Cagliari (IT) and Sabanci University (Turkey), ~€2.5M

2007 — NWO VIDI innovation grant + Aspasia subsidy, €700k

2007 — NASA Astrophysics Theory Program grant (PI: D. Meier, CoIs:  Markoff, Nakamura & Fragile), $311k

2006 — NWO Open Competition, Constraining jet physics in accreting black holes, €185k