Priyamvada Natarajan on astronomy and the imagery of black holes, philosophy and science studies, and her journey as a writer and intellectual

Priyamvada Natarajan is a Professor in the Departments of Astronomy and Physics at Yale University. She is a theoretical astrophysicist interested in cosmology, gravitational lensing and black hole physics. Her research involves mapping the detailed distribution of dark matter in the universe exploiting the bending of light en-route to us from distant galaxies. You can read her writing in the New York Review of Books, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. On this episode, she sits down with James Ryerson to discuss her career as a scientist and writer, her thoughts on science communication and the philosophy of science, and her New York Times piece, "At Long Last, a Glimpse of a Black Hole", published in April 2019. You can find Prof. Natarajan on Twitter at @SheerPriya, Line Edit at @the_line_edit, and Joseph Fridman at @joseph_fridman.

Om Podcasten

Line Edit, supported by the John Templeton Foundation and hosted by long-time editor James Ryerson, is a show about writing short pieces for wide audiences about the big questions. Ryerson has been an editor at the New York Times since 2003, and before that, edited pieces for Legal Affairs, Lingua Franca, and Feed. On each episode of Line Edit, Ryerson sits down with an academic to discuss the life cycle of a popular piece they've published, from conception to pitching, writing, editing, publication, and response. Along the way, they'll discuss advice for academics looking to communicate their work to the public, and dive into the details of the academic's background, current, and future work.