Illinois Professor of Physics and Astronomy Charles F. Gammie was named the Ikenberry Endowed Chair in January 2024. This campus-level appointment was established in honor of Stanley O. Ikenberry’s tenure as the 14th President of the University of Illinois, funded by a gift from Geraldine B. Cooke and other sources. On March 26, a ceremony was held to honor Gammie and another distinguished faculty member, Andrew Leakey, recently appointed the Aiken Chair in Plant Biology.
Written by Siv Shwink for Illinois Physics
Ikenberry Endowed Chair and Professor of Physics and Astronomy Charles Gammie poses with presenters at the Aiken-Ikenberry Investiture Ceremony, on March 26, 2024. Pictured left to right are Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost John Coleman, Gammie, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Venetria K. Patton, Executive Associate Dean of The Grainger College of Engineering Philippe Guebelle, and Chair of the Astronomy Department Tony Wong. Professor of Aerospace Engineering
Illinois Professor of Physics and Astronomy Charles F. Gammie was named the Ikenberry Endowed Chair in January 2024. This campus-level appointment was established in honor of Stanley O. Ikenberry’s tenure as the 14th President of the University of Illinois, funded by a gift from Geraldine B. Cooke and other sources. On March 26, a ceremony was held to honor Gammie and another distinguished faculty member, Andrew Leakey, recently appointed the Aiken Chair in Plant Biology.
Gammie’s research in theoretical and computational astrophysics has touched on black holes; star, planet, and moon formation; relativistically hot plasmas; and interstellar turbulence. He and his team develop numerical methods that enable work on otherwise intractable astrophysical problems.
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Provost John Coleman presents Physics and Astronomy Professor Charles Gammie with a medal on the occasion of his investiture as the Ikenberry Endowed Chair.
Gammie led the Theory Working Group of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration, which captured the first image of a black hole, unveiled in April 2019. For this work he was named one of The Bloomberg 50 and shared the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, the Bruno Rossi Prize of the American Astronomical Society, and the Einstein Medal of the Albert Einstein Society. As the EHT Collaboration expands its exploration of black hole physics, Professor Gammie continues to lead its theoretical thrust, working with his team to develop state-of-the-art numerical models to elucidate the petabytes of new data now being collected by the EHT.
Gammie is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Among his other accolades, he won a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE, 2002), was selected a University of Illinois System University Scholar (2007–2010), and was a Simons Fellow in Theoretical Physics (2015–2016). His work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Gammie received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Yale University in 1987 and his doctoral degree in astrophysical sciences from Princeton University in 1992. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the University of Cambridge prior to joining the Illinois faculty in 1999. He served as Chair of the Astronomy Department from 2011 to 2014.
Madeline Stover is a physics doctoral student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign studying atmospheric dynamics applied to forest conservation. She interns as a science writer for Illinois Physics, where she also co-hosts the podcast Emergence along with fellow physics graduate student Mari Cieszynski. When Stover is not doing research or communications, she enjoys hosting her local radio show, singing with her band, and cooking with friends.
Daniel Inafuku graduated from Illinois Physics with a PhD and now works as a science writer. At Illinois, he conducted scientific research in mathematical biology and mathematical physics. In addition to his research interests, Daniel is a science video media creator.
Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, Ph. D. is a science writer and an educator. She teaches college and high school physics and mathematics courses, and her writing has been published in popular science outlets such as WIRED, Scientific American, Physics World, and New Scientist. She earned a Ph. D. in Physics from UIUC in 2019 and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Jamie Hendrickson is a writer and content creator in higher education communications. They earned their M.A. in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2021. In addition to their communications work, they are a published area studies scholar and Russian-to-English translator.
Garrett R. Williams is an Illinois Physics Ph.D. Candidate and science writer. He has been recognized as the winner of the 2020 APS History of Physics Essay Competition and as a finalist in the 2021 AAAS Science and Human Rights Essay Competition. He was also an invited author in the 2021 #BlackinPhysics Week series published by Physics Today and Physics World.
Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, Ph. D. is a science writer and an educator. She teaches college and high school physics and mathematics courses, and her writing has been published in popular science outlets such as WIRED, Scientific American, Physics World, and New Scientist. She earned a Ph. D. in Physics from UIUC in 2019 and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.