Workshop: Black Holes from Theory to Observations

May 11 - 13, 2026

Workshop Schedule

Workshop Announcements

• Luggage storage will be available on Wednesday, May 13th beginning at 8:30am in the BLOOMBERG HALL coat room area.
   
• Lecture recordings are available at this link: https://www.ias.edu/video
   
• Registration begins at 8:15am on Monday, May 11th in Wolfensohn Hall.
   
• Coffee and tea will be available for workshop participants from 8:30am until 9:00am in Rubenstein Commons.  Please note that breakfast items will not be served.
   
• Please wear your workshop name badge at all times as it serves as your ticket for all meals.
   
• The daily lunch menu is available here: https://www.ias.edu/dining/lunch. Note that lunch begins at 1:00pm in Simons Hall and the servery doors close at 1:30pm.  Lunch includes choice of one hot entree, dessert and a soft drink.

This workshop, organized jointly with the Princeton Gravity Initiative, aims to bring together experts from different areas intersecting black hole physics, ranging from particle theory to astrophysical observations, with the goal of finding a convergent direction toward the most pressing questions that can be addressed in the coming years.

Some of the topics that will be covered include:

• Black Hole quasinormal modes
• Photon ring physics
• AGN and accretion
• Gravitational waves and scattering physics
• Extremal Black Holes
   

Program Organizers:
Alfredo Guevara, Institute for Advanced Study
Juan Maldacena, Institute for Advanced Study
Nils Siemonsen, Princeton Gravity Initiative
Giovanni Maria Tomaselli, Institute for Advanced Study
 

Confirmed Speakers:
Yilber Fabián Bautista, University of Edinburgh
Emanuele Berti, Johns Hopkins University
Sylvia Biscoveanu, Princeton University
Alessandra Buonanno, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics
Matteo Cantiello, Flatiron Institute
Marina De Amicis, Perimeter Institute
Matthew Dodelson, Harvard University
Giulia Isabella, UCLA
Mikhail Ivanov, MIT
Michael Johnson, Harvard University and Smithsonian Institution
Maciej Kolanowski, UC Santa Barbara
Alex Lupsasca, Vanderbilt University and Open AI
Donal O'Connell, University of Edinburgh
Frans Pretorius, Princeton University
Eliot Quataert, Princeton University
Ryan Unger, UC Berkeley
Niels Warburton, University College Dublin
George Wong, IAS and Princeton University

This workshop will be held in person only.

This workshop is co-sponsored by the Carl P. Feinberg Program in Cross-Disciplinary Innovation and the Princeton Gravity Initiative.

Contact Audrey Smerkanich, audrey@ias.edu, with any inquiries.