On November 1st, Laurent Loinard was named Project Director of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) consortium, a large international collaboration that published the first image of a supermassive black hole in 2019. Loinard is a researcher at the Institute of Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics (IRyA) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Campus Morelia.
“This is a great recognition of the work Laurent Loinard has carried out in long-baseline interferometry over the last few decades and within the EHT collaboration in particular. It demonstrates confidence from the collaboration's representatives and its members,” said Luis Zapata, Director of IRyA. The EHT collaboration includes nearly 400 people in 20 countries.
Long-baseline interferometry is a technique in which several astronomical observatories in different parts of the world observe the same object in radio waves simultaneously, obtaining images with much greater detail than if they observed it individually. The EHT uses this technique to study the regions closest to supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies.
This appointment places Loinard at the head of one of the most relevant and successful scientific collaborations in the world today. The designation was made after “an internal selection process carried out by the Collaboration Board, which is composed of the Directors of the 13 participating institutions, or their representatives,” commented Laurent Loinard.
“This initial appointment is for nine months,” he said, as the previous Director resigned and the IRyA researcher was appointed to cover the remainder of the term, “but with the expectation that it can be renewed. These are two-year terms,” he clarified.
Loinard also said that this appointment “places IRyA, UNAM, and Mexico at the center of one of the most important projects in world astrophysics, with enormous impact within the academic community, and great visibility in education, culture and society in general.”
“It is also a challenge, because the EHT has obtained very important results in the last 10 years, especially the first images of black holes in the M87 galaxy and our own galaxy, and there are great expectations for the future, with work to obtain the first movies of black holes and to better understand the connection between the black hole itself and the very energetic jets of gas that are created in its surroundings,” he concluded.
Photo: IRyA UNAM archive
Dr. Laurent Loinard career
Dr. Laurent Loinard obtained his bachelor’s degree in physics at the University Joseph Fourier in Grenoble, France and received his PhD from the same institution working as a predoctoral fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). He has been a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico since 2000.
Dr. Loinard is known for his use of radio interferometry techniques to measure ultra-precise distances to young stars in star-forming regions. He also carries out research on the formation and early stages of stars, the chemistry of the interstellar medium and the environment of supermassive black holes. He is a member of the Event Horizon Telescope Consortium, which published the first images of the black hole at the center of the giant elliptical galaxy M87.
He was awarded the Reconocimiento Distinción Universitaria Nacional para Jóvenes Académicos by the UNAM, a Guggenheim fellowship, and a Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. As a member of the EHT Consortium he shared the Bruno Rossi prize from the North American Astronomical Society, the Albert Einstein medal, and the Breakthrough Prize 2020. He received the Michoacán State Science Award 2023 and the 2023 Scientific Research Award from the Mexican Society of Physics. In 2024 he received the “Robert F. Kennedy” Visiting Professorship at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, United States.
Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Participating Institutions
The 13 EHT participating institutions are: Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Arizona, Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, University of Chicago, East Asian Observatory, Goethe-Universitaet Frankfurt, Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique, Large Millimeter Telescope, Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, MIT Haystack Observatory, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and Radboud University.
About IRyA, UNAM
The Instituto de Radioastronomía y Astrofísica (IRyA), or Institute for Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics is an academic unit at UNAM, Campus Morelia, Mexico. We perform high-level and high-impact research in the areas of interstellar medium, star formation, evolved stars, high energy astrophysics, Galactic dynamics and structure, extragalactic astronomy and cosmology. We contribute to the education of high-level human resources through a postgraduate program, and we have close contact with society through diverse outreach programs.
If you are interested in our Institute, visit the English version of our webpage, www.irya.unam.mx/web/en
Media contact:
Dr. René A. Ortega Minakata
Outreach and Science Communication
IRyA UNAM Campus Morelia
Text: René A. Ortega Minakata, IRyA UNAM