Jillian Bellovary

Jillian has a PhD in Astronomy from the University of Washington, and is currently a Helen Postdoctoral Fellow at the American Museum of Natural History. Jillian studies the formation and evolution of massive black holes using cosmological hydrodynamic simulations. She is interested in how they form in the early universe, how they grow to become the behemoths we see today, and whether or not we can find them in dwarf galaxies. She also helps oversee BridgeUp:STEM, which strives to increase the number of women in computing by teaching programming and its scientific applications to high school girls. Jillian served in the U.S. Peace Corps and lived in The Gambia, West Africa, for two years, where she taught college physics and had many adventures. In her free time she enjoys knitting socks and playing roller derby.