Priyamvada Natarajan Honored for Career Contributions to Black Hole and Dark Matter Research

Priyamvada Natarajan, the Joseph S. and Sophia S. Fruton Professor of Astronomy and Professor of Physics at Yale University, has been awarded the 2025 Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics from the American Astronomical Society and the American Institute of Physics. The award, which comes with a $10,000 prize, recognizes research excellence from mid-career astrophysicists.

Over the past two decades, Dr. Natarajan’s research has significantly advanced the understanding of dark matter and black holes. She is known for her extensive theoretical work on the formation and growth of black holes and the role they play in galaxy formation, as well as her use of gravitational lensing to map dark matter. For her scientific breakthroughs, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2024.

A Yale faculty member since 2000, Dr. Natarajan serves as director of the Franke Program in Science and the Humanities, chair of the department of astronomy, and chair of the women faculty forum. She holds many appointments in the broader field of astrophysics, including service as an external principal investigator for the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard and an editor for the Extra-galactic Astrophysics and Cosmology journal.

Dr. Natarajan received bachelor’s degrees in physics and mathematics and a master’s degree in science, technology, and society from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She earned her Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Cambridge in England.