Selma de Mink is a Dutch astrophysicist specializing in evolution of

stars A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by self-gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night; their immense distances from Earth make them appear as fixed points of ...

, stellar binary systems and compact objects, including

black holes A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. Th ...

. She is a scientific director at the

Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics The Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA) is a research institute located in Garching, just north of Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It is one of many scientific research institutes belonging to the Max Planck Society. The MPA is widely consid ...

in Garching near Munich, Germany.

Early life and education

Selma de Mink was born in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. She graduated from

Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; , formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public university, public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2023, it had an enrollment of ...

in the

in 2010 with a Ph.D. in Astronomy, and in 2005 with an MSc in Astrophysics, BSc in Physics and BSc in Applied Math (all cum laude).

Career

From 2019 to 2020 she was an associate professor at the

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Astronomy Department, with appointments at the Center for Astrophysics , Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) and

Black Hole Initiative The Black Hole Initiative (BHI) is an interdisciplinary center at Harvard University that includes the fields of astronomy, physics, and philosophy, and is claimed to be the first center in the world to focus on the study of black holes. Princip ...

(BHI) at Harvard. As of 2021 she is scientific director of the stellar astrophysics department at the

(MPA) in

Garching Garching bei München (, ''Garching near Munich'') or Garching is a city in Bavaria, near Munich. It is the home of several research institutes and university departments, located at Campus Garching. History Spatial urban planning Garching was ...

, Germany.

Research

In a 2012 paper in ''

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

'', De Mink and her collaborators determined that binary merges are ubiquitous among massive stars (such as Type O stars), with 70% of massive stars exchanging mass at some point with a companion, resulting in binaries in a third of these cases. For this transformative work causing scientists to reassess the importance of binary stars in stellar evolution, De Mink has been featured in a number of popular science outlets, such as the

Christian Science Monitor ''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles both in electronic format and a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper b ...

. De Mink also has widely recognized work on black hole mergers with

Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory designed to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool. Prior to LIG ...

(LIGO) implications, as she explained how massive stars can get close enough to each other to form black hole binaries if they exchange enough material to form a homogeneous envelope.

Awards

* 2019 - Pastoorsmeitsprize of the Nederlandse Astronoment Club and Kapteyn Fund * 2017 - Merac Prize for Best Early Career Researcher in Theoretical AstrophysicsMerac Prize 2017
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References

External links

Faculty webpage of Selma de Mink at the Center for Astrophysics , Harvard & Smithsonian
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mink, Selma de 1983 births Living people Utrecht University alumni 21st-century Dutch astronomers Dutch astrophysicists Dutch women physicists Max Planck Institute directors